"Drayton," he said, "I mean to stand your friend in this trouble." "Tell you again, the best friend to me is the man as helps me to make my lucky." "You shall do it, Drayton, this very night. Listen to me. That man, my brother, as they call him--Paul Ritson, as his name goes--is not my father's son. He is the son of my mother by another man, and his true name is Paul Lowther." "I don't care what his true name is, nor his untrue, neither. It ain't nothing to me, say I, and no more is it." "Would it be anything to you to inherit five thousand pounds?" "What?" "Paul Lowther is the heir to as much. What would you say if I could put you in Paul Lowther's place, and get you Paul Lowther's inheritance?" "Eh? A fortune out of hand--how?" "The way I described before." There was a slight scraping sound, such as a rat might have made in burrowing behind the partition. "What's that?" said Drayton, his face whitening, and his watchful eyes glancing toward the door. "A key in the lock?" he whispered. "Tut! isn't your own key on the inside?" said Hugh Ritson. Drayton hung his head in shame at his idle fears. "I know--I haven't forgot," he muttered, covering his discomfiture. "It's a pity to stay here and be taken, when you might as easily be safe," said Hugh. "So it is," Drayton mumbled. "And go through penal servitude for life, when another man might do it for you," added Hugh, with a ghostly smile. "I ain't axing you to say it over. What's that?" Drayton cowered down. The bankrupt garret had dropped a cake of its rotten plaster. Hugh Ritson moved not a muscle; only the sidelong glance told of his contempt for the hulking creature's cowardice. "The lawyer who has charge of this legacy is my friend and comrade," he said, after a moment's silence. "We should have no difficulty in that quarter. My mother is--Well, she's gone. There would be no one left to question you. If you were only half shrewd the path would be clear." "What about her?" "Greta? She would be your wife." "My wife?" "In name. You would go back, as I told you, and say: 'I, whom you have known as Paul Ritson, am really Paul Lowther, and therefore the half-brother of the woman with whom I went through the ceremony of marriage. This fact I learned immediately on reaching London. I bring the lady back as I found her, and shall ask that the marriage--which is no marriage--be annulled. I deliver up to the rightful heir, Hugh Ritson, the estates of Allan Ritson, and make claim to the legacy left me by my father, Robert Lowther.' This is what you have to say and do, and every one will praise you for an honest and upright man." "Very conscientious, no doubt; but what about him?" "He will then be Paul Drayton, and a felon." Drayton chuckled. "And what about her?" "If he is in safe keeping, she will count for nothing." "So I'm to be Paul Lowther." "You are to pretend to be Paul Lowther."