Ten days followed; ten long days giving place to heavy nights; ten nights passing into monotonous days. By degrees Julian fell into a species of dull routine, in which he ate and drank, and even slept; passed to and fro along the London streets; stunned almost to stupefaction. He went each day to the office and sat there all day long doing little; sitting, for the most part, staring into space or walking up and down with heavy, regular steps. He was rarely disturbed. Ramsay appeared but seldom; his visits were brief, and he was uncommunicative. At last there came a morning when he reached the office to find upon his desk a letter in Ramsay’s familiar handwriting. Julian sat down before it and looked at it for a moment, his face twitching slightly. Then he broke the seal. “DEAR ROMAYNE,” he read,-- “Your friend, Compton, holds the whole affair in his hand. Marston Loring gave him the tip. You will do as you think best about meeting the shareholders. I shall not be present myself, as I am leaving England, for the present, to-night. “Yours, “ALFRED RAMSAY.” The letter bore date of the previous day. CHAPTER XI A white face, drawn and set into a look which pitifully travestied the calmness of despair; bloodshot eyes with something in them of the incomprehending agony of a hunted animal; quivering lips which would not take the rigid line at which they aimed, and from which seemed to radiate an indescribable suggestion of youthfulness, which made the bewildered desperation of the face infinitely piteous. Two hours had passed, and Julian was seated at his writing-table in his room at the Temple. He held a pen in his hand, and before him lay a sheet of paper bearing three words only, “My dear Clemence.” On the table behind him lay a roughly packed travelling-bag and a “Bradshaw.” Flight, instant flight, was the one course that had occurred to him. Such a necessity had been present to him from the first, and in the almost insane terror which had mastered him on finding himself deserted by Ramsay, thoughts which had lain dormant in his mind during the last ten days had taken shape almost without volition on his part, and he had made his plans with wild haste. He knew nothing, he thought of nothing but that he must go at once, that at any moment he might find himself stopped, at any moment it might be too late! No thought of that last refuge of the detected criminal, suicide, presented itself to him. The realities of life were as yet strange to him; wrenched from his moorings, tossed away to drift on the pitiless sea, he could not realise what was the depth of that sea, how futile must be his struggles to keep himself afloat. The reality of death had never touched his superficial nature.