Gurth Egerton and Edward Marston sat opposite each other in the same room where a few days previously, Gurth had entertained the Adrians.

Ruth had told Marston of the visit, and as he glanced round the cosily furnished apartment he fancied he could see her at the head of the table, and Gurth smiling complacently to himself at the victory he imagined he was gaining over an absent rival.

The thought irritated him, and when Egerton handed him his cigar-case, he pushed it away from him with a contemptuous gesture.

‘A truce to this tomfoolery, Egerton!’ he exclaimed, jumping up from his chair and striding across the room in his excitement. ‘You can guess what I’ve come here to talk about.’

‘Well, suppose I can?’ answered Gurth, quietly helping himself from the rejected case.

‘You will spare me the trouble of any introductory remarks. I may as well be plain, Gurth. In the old days we didn’t choose our phrases, and we needn’t now. You are paying a good deal too much attention to Ruth Adrian, and I strongly object to it.’

‘I have no doubt you do,’ answered Gurth; ‘but the young lady may not.’

‘Tush, man! we are not rehearsing a comedy. Drop your repartee. Ruth does object to your visits very much.’

‘I am sorry to hear it; but I visit her parents’ house at her parents’ invitation.’

‘Good. Then you’ll remain away in future at my invitation.’

‘What the deuce do you mean, Mr. Marston?’

‘What I say. If it isn’t clear to you, I’ll put it plainer. I request you to keep away from the Adrians’ while Ruth remains with them.’

‘Hoity-toity! You request me?’

‘Yes; or rather I command you. Come, Mr. Gurth Egerton, you are not the only beggar who can sit a horse. I can be up in the stirrups too.’

Gurth Egerton looked at Marston for a moment, but the face of the latter betrayed nothing.

‘Look here, Ned Marston,’ he said, after a pause; ‘I don’t want to quarrel with you, but you are adopting a tone which doesn’t suit you at all. It’s out of place, my dear fellow. Who are you!’

‘You know well enough.’

‘Perhaps I do. As you evidently forget yourself, let me remind you. Some time ago a ragged, half-starved fellow turned up in London, after a long absence from the scenes of his youth, and came cadging to a friend of mine. My friend, acting on my behalf, gave him five hundred pounds for old acquaintance sake.’

Marston interrupted.

‘So Birnie let you in for that five hundred, did he?’ he exclaimed with a laugh. ‘What a chap he is!’

‘I paid the five hundred you drew of Birnie. Certainly I did!’ continued Gurth. ‘I was very glad to do it for a poor devil out of luck whom I had known in former times. I could afford it, you know——-’

‘Of course you could, having Ralph’s money to spend.’

‘Ralph’s money was left to me legally, Mr. Marston, and no one can dispute my right to it! You got that five hundred, and you seem to have made a good use of it. You have managed to worm your way into respectable society, established a certain amount of credit, and now you have the confounded impudence to interfere in my private affairs—to aspire to the hand of a lady I intend to make my wife. Take my advice, Mr. Marston; be satisfied with your present success, and leave well alone.’

‘If I don’t?’

‘If you don’t I shall take care that your true character is known. I have no doubt if the police are once put on the right track they could furnish me with some interesting details of your past career.’

Marston laughed.

‘What a rum chap you are, Egerton!’ he said. ‘Do you think if I had anything to fear I should have acted in the way I have? You are on the wrong line this time, old fellow.’

‘You interfere between Ruth Adrian and me, and it will be bad for you!’ exelaimed Gurth, angrily.

Marston, who had been standing by the window, came across the room to the mantel-shelf, and stood with his back to the fireplace.

‘Listen to me, Gurth Egerton,’ he said. ‘I told you once before that it was no use your crossing my path in this quarter, and you despised my warning. It is necessary now that I should let you know the consequences to you if you persist in your folly.’

‘You threaten?’

‘Certainly. Haven’t you threatened me? But I shall not be so foolish as you. You have shown your hand to no purpose. I fancy when you see my cards you will fling the game up.’

Marston’s manner was cold, and his voice stern. He spoke with such an air of conscious power that Gurth’s anxiety betrayed itself in the expression of his face.

Marston noticed the effect, and hastened to follow it up.

‘I love Ruth Adrian honestly and devotedly!’ he continued. ‘With her for my wife, I am about to lead a new life—a life which you will not be able to understand, perhaps. If you, by word or deed, attempt to thwart my purpose, woe betide you, Gurth Egerton. You had better try to rob a lion of its whelp than step between me and the fulfilment of my dream.’

Gurth roused himself with an effort. ‘Talk, my dear fellow!’ he exclaimed, banteringly. ‘Mere talk! What could you—an adventurer, a runaway from America, a penniless schemer—say or do that would injure a man of my wealth and position? Come, what do you want? A thousand—two thousand? Name your figure, take a cheque, and disappear. You are good at disappearing, you know.’

Marston had controlled himself with difficulty for some time, but when, in stinging tones of contempt, Gurth offered him money—offered to buy Ruth of him, as it were—his calmness forsook him. With a flushed face and flashing eyes he sprang forward and seized Gurth by the shoulders.

‘You cur!’ he exclaimed, passionately. ‘Do you think to buy me with your dirty money?—your money!—bah, with the money that you have got by fraud—for all I know, by murder!’

It was a shot at random, but it went home.

Gurth, white as a ghost, shook himself free from Marston’s clutch.

‘What do you mean?’ he exclaimed. ‘How dare you say such things?’

‘Look at your white face in the glass,’ cried Marston, with an exulting cry. ‘I’ve unmasked you at last, then. Ah, my fine fellow, I fancy I know the weak spot now. You’ll sweep me out of your path, will you? We’ll see. Now, listen to this, Mr. Gurth Egerton. The first time you cross the Adrians’ threshold you seal your own fate. I’ll risk what will happen, and I’ll risk proving my words, but I’ll publicly denounce you as the murderer of Ralph Egerton!’

‘You fool!’ gasped Egerton, in a husky voice. ‘You know it isn’t true. You know he was killed in a drunken row. You were there. Besides, his death was duly certified——’

‘By Birnie!’ answered Marston. ‘A pretty certificate!’

‘Good enough, at any rate, to silence such an accusation as you make,’ answered Gurth, more calmly.

He was beginning to recover his composure. He was shrewd enough to see that there was nothing in Marston’s threat after all, and that he dare hardly use such a weapon lest he should injure himself.

A moment’s reflection showed Marston that the threat was an empty one. He would try another arrow in the dark.

‘You are prepared to meet that accusation, are you?’ he said, speaking slowly and deliberately, and watching the effect of his words. ‘Very well, then, to make sure I’ll back it with another. Let me find you at Adrians’—let me hear that you have shown your false face there again, or spoken to Ruth one single word wherever you may chance to meet her—and I’ll sweep the fortune you have done so much to gain from your clutch at a blow.’

This time Gurth laughed bravely. He began to have an idea that Marston was merely shooting at random in the hope of hitting once.

‘What will you do?’ he asked. ‘Charge me with attempted regicide, or with plotting the destruction of the British Museum?’

‘I shall charge you with nothing,’ answered Marston, quietly. ‘I shall set up another claimant to the property.’

Without stopping to explain—without waiting to watch the effect on Gurth—Marston turned on his heel, and went out of the door.

He had played a card at hazard. He had no real idea that he could do what he said, but he knew that Gurth was concealing something—that there was something in the background which Gurth feared being known.

He had no real idea that Ralph had left any heir but Gurth, but he fancied there was a screw loose—that if all had been fair, square, and above-board, Gurth would not be so mysterious in his movements, nor so much in the power of Birnie as he evidently was. He had always had his suspicions of foul play with regard to Gurth and Ralph, and had a vague idea that some scheme had been concocted which had given Gurth the dead man’s property. The will might be a forgery, or a codicil might have been suppressed. The idea was a vague one merely, and it was suggested more by Gurth’s manner than by anything else.

He had shot his arrow in the dark, but it had hit the mark.

As the door closed behind Marston, Gurth sprang up and shook his fist at the place where his rival had been.

‘I’ll be even with you yet, Ned Marston!’ he exclaimed. ‘You know more than you ought to. You’ve been prying and ferreting about, and you’ve found out something, and now you think you’ve got me in your power. Wait a while, my fine fellow, and I’ll turn the tables on you, and shut your mouth tight enough, or my name’s not Gurth Egerton!’

What did Marston mean? Egerton wondered. A hundred things suggested themselves. Had he learned the secret of Gertie Heckett’s parentage? He could not say. He might even have found out where the marriage had taken place. Gurth had no doubt in his own mind there had been a marriage. There was just the chance that Ralph’s boast was that of a drunkard, but it was a very faint one. Still it was singular the certificate had never turned up. It wasn’t among Ralph s papers—of that he was sure. It couldn’t have been among the dead girl’s, or old Heckett would have been down on the property at once.

It was all a mystery; but, do what he would, he could not separate Marston’s threat from Gertie Heckett. He felt sure that Marston knew something about her birth, and that she was the claimant he referred to.

Why had he never said anything before?

Pacing the room, and thinking, he found himself presently at the window. It was an old habit of his to pause when he was deep in thought, and look out into the street at nothing.

As he looked out who should pass by on the other side but Ruth Adrian and Gertie.

Close behind them came Lion, trotting along with his tail in the air, and his nose in close contact with the pavement.

Something in the appearance of Gertie and the dog struck Egerton, and suddenly he remembered he had seen them pass his house once before, when he had no idea how closely they were connected with his career.

The last time he saw them go by was when he was planning out his brilliant future.

It was more than a coincidence that on the very day when the first part of his scheme had been frustrated by a despised rival, Gertie Heckett and her dog should once more come between him and the shadow-land that he was gazing into.

Marston’s threat had done its work. Mr. Gurth Egerton decided that for the present he would not intrude on the domestic circle of the Adrians. The next day his house was once more masterless.

But this time he was bound on no purposeless journey. He had a goal in view—a goal to reach which men and women have ere now sacrificed the best years of their life—a goal whose attainment is to some natures a glorious reward for superhuman effort and unexampled endurance.

That goal was revenge! Mr. Gurth Egerton had gone to America.