He knew well enough, but he said it to force her to a confession of the truth. ‘I--I don’t quite understand you,’ she stammered. ‘I mean how is it that you hold a letter addressed to Godfrey Harland?’ ‘Do you know him?’ she asked quickly. ‘_Know him!_ I should rather think I did. I know him for the greatest scoundrel unhung.’ ‘Hush!--hush!’ cried Iris fearfully. ‘I’m not afraid of who may hear me, Miss Douglas. The whole ship might listen, for ought I should care about it. But I am sorry to think so true a lady as yourself should have any connection (however distant) with such a blackguard as Godfrey Harland.’ ‘Ah! you don’t know--’ she commenced, with a look of the keenest pain. ‘Won’t you tell me?’ he said coaxingly. ‘I’m a rough fellow, Miss Douglas, and not a fit friend, perhaps, for the like of you. But I can see you’re in trouble, and if your trouble is connected with that man, you’ll want a friend to help you through with it. He’s a rascal--I can’t help saying it, whatever you may think of him, and if he can cheat you, he will, as he has done others, over and over again.’ ‘Oh! I think I could trust you!’ exclaimed Iris involuntarily; ‘for you look honest and true, Mr Farrell, and you love Maggie, and Maggie loves me. Yes, I feel sure you will be the friend of _her_ friend. But how astonished you will be when I tell you the truth! Stoop your head lower, that no one may hear us. My name is not Miss Douglas at all. It is Iris Harland. I am Godfrey Harland’s wife.’ ‘God help you, poor thing!’ exclaimed Farrell fervently. ‘Ah! what do you know against him to say that?’ she replied, shrinking from him. ‘Did you ever hear of him before you met on board-ship?’ ‘I have known him, to my misfortune, for years, Miss Douglas. He has been the ruin of my life.’ ‘God forgive him! How?’ ‘We were clerks in the same office, though he was in a higher position than myself, and his real name (as I suppose you know) is Horace Cain.’ ‘_Horace Cain!_ repeated Iris, with knitted brows. ‘I never heard of it. Mr Farrell, are you _sure_ you are not making a mistake? He married me as Godfrey Harland.’ ‘Then he married you under a false name. But he had good reason for changing it, as I will prove to you. How well I remember the day his father, old Mr Cain, brought him to Starling’s office, and what a swell we all thought him! He had only left college a few weeks then, owing to their loss of fortune, and he gave himself all the airs of a millionaire. We were very much prejudiced against him at first, because old Starling (who was a friend of his father’s) placed him over all our heads, although he did not know anything of the business. However, it was his policy to make himself agreeable, and learn all he could. And nice work he made of the knowledge he gained. He hadn’t been six months in the office, before a forgery was committed on old Starling’s bank for eight hundred pounds.