George starts back in terror, and Bess almost falls. Who is this man they have saved from death to cry their secret aloud like this? ‘Nay, don’t be afeard,’ growls the man. ‘You’ve saved my life, and you’ve done the best night’s work you ever done in your lives. Let’s get out of this place, and I’ll tell you something as’ll make you thank God all your days for what you’ve done.’ Hardly knowing what they do, so dazed are they by the rapid progress of events, George and Bess follow the strange man. He is wet to his waist, and his saturated clothes are frozen on him, but he doesn’t seem to care about it. His mind is busy with some thought that makes his burly frame heave with passion, and his fierce face hideous with rage. ‘By G—d, if he only knew!’ he cries. At the park gates he gets into a cab, and bids his preservers follow him. He tells them enough to assure them he means them no harm. In a quarter of an hour George and Bess are safely sheltered in a house in Lisson Grove, and the man they have rescued sits with them by a roaring fire, and tells them a story which makes Bess’s pale cheeks crimson with excitement and her eyes bright with joy, and which makes George raise his eyes to heaven in thankfulness, and cry: ‘At last. Thank God!—thank God!’ The man they have rescued is Josh Heckett, and the man whose retreating footsteps they had heard in the mist, and who in a fit of furious rage had hurled the old man on to the treacherous ice, was Edward Marston. The next morning there was a council of war. George confided his story fully to Heckett, for he had learnt enough to know that Heckett cherished a scheme of deadly revenge, and that George was to be the chief instrument in it. Heckett had only one idea now—to hunt down Marston. He was relentless in his hate, and he had found an instrument ready to his hand. Heedless of his own safety, and the use that might be made of the knowledge, he told George all, How the burglary had been planned; how it was George had been suspected; how the cheques had been forged by Smith and Co.; and how the evidence had been built up in order to secure the conviction of an innocent man. George was for dragging him away there and then to tell his story; but Heckett soon showed him what folly that would be. He himself dare not appear. He could not face the police, he said, for reasons; and, besides, to exculpate George he would have to accuse himself. ‘You bide a bit, governor, and you’ll see it’ll all come right; but it’s Marston as must do you justice, not me.’ ‘Where is he?’ asked George. ‘I don’t know,’ answered Heckett. ‘I saw him last night for the first time for five years. I sent word to a man named Preene as I must see him, and Preene found him and sent him to me. I made the appointment in the park late, for I didn’t want to be seen by too many people, for I didn’t know what cursed game he might be up to. Then we had a row, and he tried to murder me, the blackguard!’