He knew what he would do to White if he caught him. No matter what the guilt of his wife--or the woman who had posed as his wife for a few hours--Ryder was very sure that White was the more guilty. He was as ruthless an outlaw at this moment as ever a twentieth century business man could be. The special backed in. It stopped about ten seconds, for Ryder was the only person to board it. Then on toward the city for which the two guilty creatures he was following had bought tickets. They might have bought them for New York as a blind; but Ruth's trunks were plainly marked for that city. A baggage car and smoker and some official's private car made up the special train. John Ryder's name was a power with the officials of this road if he cared to use it. And it was of his name that he thought, sitting shrugged down in the leather covered lounge and watching the autumn landscape fly past. He remembered what he had tried to make his name stand for during the years he had been working up to his present business pinnacle. He came of unblemished stock. His father had been an honest man. His mother, the memory of whom had ever been an inspiration to him, had been a beautiful woman both in person and character. He had given her ring--her wedding ring, hallowed by being worn on the finger of a pure and gentle wife--into the keeping of one who, he now believed, did not value the sacred character of the emblem. His wife---- Well! she _was_ his wife! He had married her legally! He tried to push any other thought down. Yet, suppose she had no right to marry him? That was the awful thought that rankled like a barbed arrow in his heart. "Mrs. John B. White," written under the erased "Ruth Mont" on the trunk tags seemed to clinch Ryder's suspicions first aroused by White's actions and words. Was Ruth a bigamist without having intended the crime? Had she been married in England and, for some reason, supposed her husband dead? Was there something shameful connected with this White and her association with him that had spurred her to try to hide her former marriage from Ryder. What manner of woman was she? Was her sweetness and innocence all assumed? She had seemed to John Ryder until this terrible thing had arisen, to be good and pure--in every way a desirable character. Of course, she might be vain. Her consideration of the offer of Sam Marks to put her on the stage might prove that frailty. An actress! Was there an explanation in that thought? Had she been acting all along? Had the story she told him on shipboard been a tissue of falsehoods? Was her apparent fondness for him born of her ability to simulate emotions and feelings that she did not really possess? Good heavens! was it all a part of a plot, perhaps, to link his name--the name of John Ryder--with the stage career of a vaudeville actress? Was this the explanation of it all?