"You will find me at the Hurst," he said; "I will go there. If there is any law in the land which can punish you, I will have it, though it cost me a fortune. Yes, I will go home." Still they were silent. Whether from pity, or awe at the sight of his misery, they were silent. He looked round and, as if he had called, Slummers glided to his side. They had already reached the door, when a voice said: "Tell him." It was Jack who had returned to the room. At the sound of the voice, grave and pitying, Stephen swung round as if he had been stung. "You are here still," he said, and a glance of malignant hatred distorted his face. "I thought you were in jail by this time. You were waiting to take your wife with you. It would have been wiser to allow her to go to the Hurst." "Tell him," said Jack. With a slow, almost reluctant movement, Laura Treherne drew a paper from under her jacket and held it up. Stephen looked at it for a moment as if his sight had failed him, then he smiled. "The plot thickens," he said. "You have robbed me of my wife; you have, no doubt, some ready-forged document to rob me of my estate. Am I to give the credit to you for this?" Then he broke out wildly, with a mad laugh. "It is a forgery! a forgery! I will swear it. There is no such will. The marriage never took place. You've to prove both yet! You are not so clever as I thought. You should have stopped short where you were. You have got her, be satisfied; the rest is mine! Mine, and you cannot take it from me," and he held his clinched fist toward Jack as he held all Hurst in his grasp. "Show him," said Gideon Rolfe. Stephen waved his hand contemptuously. "A stale trick," he said. "A clumsy forgery. You cannot connect it with my uncle's death. Go to your lawyer--Hudsley, if you will; he will be ready enough to help you--and he will tell you that proof is impossible." As he spoke his voice grew clearer. It was a relief to his overwrought brain to fight them on ground he had often mentally surveyed. With an insolent smile on his face he leaned both hands on the table and looked at them. "Come," he said, "you have not won everything yet. The Hurst is mine; I laugh your forgery to scorn. I will spend every penny of the estate to contest it. I assert that this paper was forged--last night--if you like. You cannot prove it was in existence an hour sooner; I defy you. You have overreached yourselves. Take care! This is your hour. Mine will come when I see you in the dock." In his excitement he had not noticed the entrance of the bent figure of Skettle, and he turned with a start as the thin, dry voice, close to his elbow, croaked: "Quite right, Mr. Stephen. That's their weak point--want of connection. If they could carry it back, say to the night of the squire's death, now, it would be different." Stephen looked round with a cunning smile of defiance. "This old fool will bear me out. Show him your will."