Gurth Egerton was delighted at the cordial reception he had received at the hands of Mr. Adrian. He had, at any rate, in that interview ascertained that, so far as Ruth’s parents were concerned, nothing was known of Marston’s pretensions.

He was more than ever convinced that it was only braggadocio on that gentleman’s part, and that he had nothing to fear from his old companion. The more he thought of it, the more absurd it seemed to him that he should ever have attached any importance to Marston’s assertion. Ruth certainly was polite to him, and when he had seen them meet they met as old friends. He quite understood that. Years ago, before Marston went wrong, he had been acquainted with the family, and Ruth and he had been sweethearts as boy and girl. But things were very different now. Marston, in spite of his assumption of independence, was only an adventurer. He felt convinced that his respectability was a whited sepulchre, and that there was something very rotten underneath it.

But the undoubted fact remained that Marston was now on visiting terms with the Adrians, and that Ruth was not particularly cold to him.

It would be safer, at any rate, to clinch the matter at once, and bowl Mr. Edward Marston out before he had a chance of scoring.

Gurth followed up his declaration to Mr. Adrian at once. He managed to find himself pretty constantly in Ruth’s society, and he flattered himself that he was on the straight road to conquest.

But he was determined not to be too precipitate, and by overhaste court an answer which might render his position a difficult one.

One day when he called he was annoyed to find Marston at the house, but he shook hands with him cordially, and barely allowed his annoyance to be perceptible.

It was Marston’s first visit to the Adrians for some time. He had been engaged on ‘important business,’ but he had not allowed Ruth’s little note to remain unanswered.

He had written, telling her that he had been successful in a great undertaking, and that now he was in a position to offer her a home and devote himself solely to making her happy.

He had met Ruth, too, and the old romance of their lives had been reopened at a second volume.

It is in the third volume that everybody is generally made happy, and it was to the third volume which Marston was now anxious to turn.

He had conquered the fortress once more. It had been but weakly defended. One by one, the barriers had gone down before the weapons which Marston brought to bear upon it. The old love had never died out—it had but languished awhile; and now that Ruth believed Marston to be leading a new life, and to be the brave, honest-hearted, good fellow she once prayed that he might become, she was thankful he had never met that good woman she had once prayed might be flung in his path.

Who can explain the workings of a woman’s heart? Who can dissect it, and show the complex machinery which governs its marvellous performances? To attempt such a task would be to court ignominious failure. I only know that Ruth Adrian, pure, good, and noble as she was, loved Edward Marston, and trusted him as blindly and devotedly as ever, in spite of the rude shock her faith had once received, in spite of the many doubts with which her heart had been beset since his reappearance on the horizon that bounded her little world. Her love was strengthened and confirmed by the very fact that once he had led an evil life, that once she had been compelled to snap the link, and bid him go his way and leave her to go hers.

She found herself now hungering for a word from him, waiting about where he was to pass, meeting him under all the romantic circumstances of a first courtship. At twenty-eight her heart beat as quickly when he came as it had done when she was eighteen. It seemed to her that their separation and the long ordeal through which they had both passed had but purified and intensified their love.

Even the element of secrecy which, as much for her own sake as for his, Marston imported into the romance was not without its harm. Ruth knew now that both her mother and father would be opposed to her match. She saw that Gurth Egerton was in high favour, and, so far as they were concerned, would be a formidable rival to her poor Ned. But she was her own mistress now, and could decide for herself. Gurth Egerton was a very pleasant gentleman, but he came too late. She had no heart left to give. Marston had won it long ago, and now he had the right to claim it.

When Marston called, he did so by Ruth’s advice. She didn’t want Gurth Egerton to have the field entirely to himself. She was sure Marston was quite as agreeable as he was.

Of course she had told Marston about Gurth—about the tea-party and his constant visits. Of the interview with her father she herself knew nothing. Marston was seriously alarmed. He remembered his interview with Gurth, and he felt that it would not do to despise such a foe too much.

Acting on Ruth’s hint he determined to ingratiate himself with the Adrians as much as he could, and, if possible, cut Gurth out on his own ground.

He knew that so far as Ruth was concerned he had nothing to fear, but for her sake he was anxious that she should marry him with the full and free approbation of her parents.

He felt that she would never really be happy under any other circumstances, and, strange as it may seem, Ruth’s happiness was with him now a primary consideration. He had gradually come to love his old sweetheart again with an affection as pure and disinterested as that she felt for him.

She seemed to him, like an angel of light, to banish the darkness of the past. He never really knew how vile and wicked he had been till he looked into Ruth’s sweet eyes, and thought that one day she would bear his name.

He shuddered sometimes now as he thought of what an awful past was linked with that name. Now that Ruth had assured him of her love, now that the bright pages were open once more in his book of life, he recognized, for the first time, the depth to which he had fallen. There was much in the past about which he hesitated to think; there were secrets buried away in the bygone years of poverty and scheming which once he could remember with a smile, but which now made him tremble to think that some day they might be dragged into the glaring light of day.

‘What a different man I might have been had such a woman’s love been mine years ago!’ he thought; but never for a moment did he blame Ruth for the part she had played when his future hung in the balance.

He was innocence itself then in comparison with what he had been when he plunged, reckless and despairing, into the black abyss of crime.

Even the deed which had given him fortune, the well-planned and cleverly executed robbery which had astonished the world and left him independent of crime for the future, terrified him now.

Without it he would still have been an adventurer—he dared not have offered Ruth his hand. It was this vilely won wealth which he believed would give him all the happiness he was ever to know in the future; it was this which was to enable him to break with all his old associates and live cleanly; it was this which was to be the foundation of a genuine business career in which he might win wealth and honour legitimately; and yet he never parted with Ruth after one of those frequent interviews without wishing he had gone penniless to the grave rather than have launched out into such a crime with her image in his heart, and her sweet self the beacon that shone at the end of the long dark path and lured him on.

It seemed a treachery to her now to have linked her with such villany.

The transition state of Mr. Edward Marston’s conscience was a condition of things which would form a splendid study for the moralist and the philosopher. The novelist must not pause by the way to dilate upon it, tempting though the opportunity may be. He has already left the Adrians and their visitors much longer than courtesy and the rules of fiction allow.

Marston and Egerton left together. The conversation had been confined to platitudes. Mr. Adrian was ill at ease, for he feared danger from the Marston quarter now more than ever. When he did bring his eyes from Patagonia to things nearer home, they generally saw pretty clearly. Mrs. Adrian was so rude to Marston that Ruth was really distressed. The good lady begged that he would not kick the chair legs, as they had just been repolished; she requested him kindly to move his chair a little way from the wall, as it was nibbing the paper; and when he drew up to the table at last, in a tone of icy politeness she called his attention to the fact that he was drumming with his fingers on the said piece of furniture, a practice which, in her delicate state of health, always gave her the headache.

Marston laughed good-humouredly, but the laugh was forced. Gurth was ill at ease, for he saw that a storm was brewing, and when Marston rose to leave he went with him.

He knew that, sooner or later, he and Marston would have to have a few words, and he felt that it might as well be now.

He was hardly prepared, however, for the coolness which his rival displayed.

‘Which way are you going, Gurth?’ said Marston, as they closed the Adrians’ gate.

‘Home,’ answered Gurth. ‘Come with me and have a cigar.’

‘That’s just what will suit me best. I want to talk with you about one or two things.’

The two men exchanged very few words on their way to Gurth’s house. Both were busy with their thoughts. Both were bracing themselves up for the conflict to come.

As they passed through one of the main thoroughfares the afternoon papers were being sold, and there was a crowd round the placards.

Gurth went up and peered over to read the contents bill that was exciting so much attention.

‘What is it?’ asked Marston. ‘A murder or a robbery?’

‘It will turn out both, I dare say,’ said Egerton. ‘The Great Blankshire Bank has stopped payment.’

‘Oh!’ said Marston; ‘I don’t know much about commercial matters. Is there anything special about the circumstances?’

‘No! only it is unlimited, and the shareholders will be beggars. The liabilities are immense.’

‘Poor devils!’ exclaimed Marston. ‘I’m sorry for ‘em; but, as I’m not a shareholder, it doesn’t interest me.’

Edward Marston spoke as he believed. He little knew that the failure of the Great Blankshire Bank was to interest him very much indeed.