“Looks as if she were in a mess!” he thought idly. “She might be handsome, too--it’s a pity!” and he turned away. It was some other fellow’s business; he had enough on his own hands without taking up a girl who stared past him till she caught his eyes on her and then ran with a sudden, frightened bound out of the lighted station. “The wicked flee when no man pursueth,” thought Mr. Erle; he was rather fond of the Bible, for amusement merely. And he got into his train and thought of other things, not too comfortably. He had had an exceedingly annoying interview with his father. After all he had done to please him, the elder man would scarcely listen to his question, or indeed speak to him. At a strenuous appeal for money, indeed Lord Erceldonne had broken out savagely: “You had better discover a lady who possesses it,” he had said roughly, unlike himself. “As for Erceldonne, you needn’t count on the succession to it.” “What do you mean?” his son stared. But Lord Erceldonne had recovered himself. “Nothing,” he returned icily, “except that every stick we own is mortgaged. You must forage yourself.” But his son had seen him crumple up a telegram that lay on the table. It was not those ancient mortgages that troubled him. “I wonder what the deuce it was!” he reflected now in the train, for distasteful as London was, it was better than his father’s society. “For a moment I thought my reverend parent was about to impart to me that I was not the rightful heir!” sneeringly. “He’s got something on his mind, but that would be rot! There’s been no question of it for years.” The strange girl had completely left his memory as the train reached London; indeed, she had never stayed there. Mr. Erle glanced at his watch as he took a cab at Euston. It was not eleven o’clock; he would see what fortune had done for him before he went--by George! he had forgotten. He could not show himself in town. There was that business of the sheriff, and Andria! “The Continent!” said he to himself. “As soon as possible! But first I must visit my--well, I hope he’ll be my banker!” He stopped the cab and got out at the very shop where Beryl had bought that useless laudanum no farther back than the morning. “A shabby chemist’s,” she had thought, quite unconscious that the drugs were but an outward show, and that the proprietor was one of the largest book-makers in London, though he never attended a race. Sometimes he had provided Mr. Erle with sums that tided him over; but of late that gentleman had not been lucky. He entered the shop with a languid nod, and was glad to see the proprietor was alone. For once, too, he seemed to be paying some attention to his legitimate trade. He was studying a greasy blank-book that was not out of his inside office. “Ah, Mr. Erle!” he said. “I have some money for you--a hundred or more.” Mr. Erle never moved a muscle, though he needed the money and had not expected it. “Right!” he returned carelessly. “What have you got there?”