It was six o’clock on the following day, and in the sunset light of the July evening—a light with which the bustling, hurrying, unlovely crowd on which it fell seemed strangely out of harmony—the current of human life was setting strongly in every direction from the City. Along Cornhill, going against the stream, but driven, nevertheless, at a pace which was looked upon far from favourably by the police occupied in regulating the traffic, there came a hansom cab. In the cab, with one hand gripping the doors until the knuckles stood out white, was Julian Romayne. His hat was pulled slightly forward over his brow, as if with some half-conscious sense of the ghastliness of his face, some instinct to hide that ghastliness from casual eyes. His face was of a livid pallor. There were grey shadows about the mouth, which was set into hard lines of temporary and difficult self-control. His nostrils, not sensitive as a rule, quivered slightly as the pace of his horse slackened perforce now and again; he gave no other slightest sign of consciousness of his surroundings.

The cab turned out of Cornhill, and in another second pulled up suddenly. Almost before the cab had stopped, Julian flung open the doors and leapt out. He paid the man double his fare, dashed into the building before which they had stopped, and up the stairs to an office on the second floor. His hand was shaking like a leaf as he stretched it out to try the lock of the door. It yielded to his touch, and he flung it roughly open and passed rapidly in. The outer office had only one occupant, a rather feeble-looking little man, who was trying to improve the appearance of a shabby hat by a careful application of his coat-sleeve. He looked up with a start on Julian’s entrance, and an expression of comprehending concern dawned on his face. He was the messenger of the Welcome Diamond Mining Company. Before he could speak, however, a hoarse, peremptory question broke from Julian:

“Mr. Ramsay’s not gone?”

“Not yet, sir,” was the answer, given with timid alacrity. “He’s here later than usual to-night, you see, in consequence——”

But before the first words were fairly uttered, Julian had crossed the room, and as he reached the second door leading into the inner office, it opened quietly, and Ramsay stood on the threshold. He was looking as imperturbable and uninterested as usual, and his voice was dry indifference itself as he observed:

“I have been expecting you all day.”

Without a word Julian strode past him into the manager’s room, and then, as Ramsay shut the door calmly, he said, in a quick, unnatural tone, which also carried with it a curious suggestion that he had not even heard Ramsay’s words:

“It’s a mistake! It’s a mistake! It must be!”

Ramsay’s only answer was a slight shrug of the shoulders as his dull eyes rested, apparently with complete indifference, upon Julian’s face; and the latter went on, rapidly and unevenly:

“I’ve only just heard. I’ve been out of town all day. I’ve come to hear—to see what can be done.”

The last words were hardly audible, as though his mouth was so parched that he could hardly articulate. He lifted his hand as if involuntarily, and pushed back his hat, fixing a pair of fierce, burning eyes upon Ramsay.

“There’s nothing to be done, of course,” said Ramsay drily. “The thing’s collapsed.”

A harsh, wild laugh rang through the room, its faint echoes startling the little man in the outer office.

“Collapsed!” cried Julian. “Collapsed, by Heaven!”

He put out one hand gropingly, caught at a chair near him and dropped heavily into it, letting his face fall forward upon his folded arms as they rested upon its back.

Only half an hour had passed since he had gone to his rooms in the Temple after a picnic on the river, to find waiting for him there a telegram from Ramsay. And into that half-hour had been compressed such a desperate stand against despair as is little less terrible than despair itself. The telegram had told him that on the opening of the Stock Exchange that morning it had been spread abroad on unimpeachable authority that the Welcome Diamond Mine was under water. This evening, the inevitable sequel of such a fact, as he knew too well, shares in the Welcome Diamond Mining Company were so much waste-paper.

Ramsay stood for a moment looking at him, with a rather curious expression on his inexpressive face.

“It’s a turn of the game,” he said drily. “If you stand to win, you must stand to lose, too. You hadn’t thought of that, I suppose?”

With a sudden tumultuous movement, as though his agony of mind was no longer to be endured in stillness, Julian sprang from his chair and began to walk up and down the room with hasty, uneven strides.

“Thought of it!” he cried. “What was there to make one think of it? It was a certainty yesterday, man; a certainty!”

A spasm passed across his face, and seemed to cut off his words, and Ramsay observed sententiously:

“It’s a mistake to reckon anything as a certainty till you hold it in your hand.”

Julian faced round suddenly and confronted him, his eyes blazing, every feature working.

“What the devil is the good of saying things like that?” he demanded. “Can’t you understand that I have reckoned on it, as you call it? Can’t you understand that it was all or nothing with me, and I am just done? Can’t you understand——”

He broke off suddenly, and, turning away with a heavy groan, flung himself into a chair, and let his face fall forward on the table. For all that he was face to face with at that moment he could have found no words. The remorse, the sense of failure and helplessness, the despair which seemed to be tearing his heart to pieces, were one intolerable anguish.

Ramsay followed him with his eyes, and then crossed the room quietly, and stood beside his bowed figure, which was shaken now and again from head to foot.

“Is it so bad as this, boy?” he said quietly. Then, as there came no answer, he went on meditatively: “Ten thousand pounds! Ten thousand isn’t so much to lose. Counters in the game, that’s all.”

He paused, and after a moment Julian lifted his face, haggard and drawn.

“It’s the stake you must look to,” he said. “My stake was heavy, Ramsay. Oh, you’re right enough. Ten thousand pounds isn’t much. I borrowed a thousand yesterday—raised it on a reversion—to get hold of some shares Loring wanted to sell. That wasn’t much either, of course.”

He had spoken in a dreary, monotonous voice, which was inexpressibly hopeless. And Ramsay’s eyes were fixed keenly on him as their owner said drily:

“You bought a thousand pounds’ worth of Loring’s shares yesterday? Did you know that he was selling out all his interest in the Welcome?”

Julian turned with a quick, startled movement, and then paused.

“All his interest?” he repeated. “He wanted a thousand to pay for a Scotch moor, that was all.”

“He sold every share he had yesterday,” returned Ramsay. “Curious coincidence.”

“You don’t mean to tell me——”

The eyes of the two men met; and Julian sprang to his feet with a fierce imprecation.

“He knew it?” he cried; “he knew it, and kept it dark, that he might keep the market to himself? It isn’t possible, Ramsay; it isn’t possible!”

“Nothing is impossible,” returned Ramsay quietly.

A savage, hissing breath came from between Julian’s set teeth, and he seemed literally alive with passion. Without a word he stretched out his hand for his hat and turned to leave the room. Ramsay quietly intercepted his passage.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“I’m going to see Mr. Loring.”

The slightest possible smile touched the elder man’s lips, and he said:

“All right. I shall have something to say to Mr. Loring, too. But listen to me, first. Was it a desperate necessity to you to pull off this affair?”

Julian did not speak. His lips twitched for a moment, then settled into a thin line; and the look in his eyes was answer enough.

“Very good, then,” said Ramsay. “Come and see me here to-morrow at six. I may be able to give you a hand.”

With a gesture of uncomprehending assent, but with no word of answer, Julian turned away and left the room.

Three-quarters of an hour later he was coming rapidly down the staircase which led from Loring’s chambers. His face was flushed and quivering, and every pulse was beating madly, like the pulses of a man who has just given unrestrained expression to furious passion. He turned on to the Embankment, and began to walk away in a headlong fashion, evidently neither knowing nor caring where he was going.

And as he walked the tumultuous life and glow of his face died slowly out, and settled into a haggard, sullen mask of dull despair. He had spoken his mind to Loring, and now there was nothing more for him to do.