"Sit down, Dick. I've had a horrid night too. We will consider directly what is best to be done." While he spoke there came a letter--"By hand. Sir Robert Steele. Bearer waits." "DEAR SIR ROBERT, "Come to see me as soon as you can. I have had the most terrible night. "Yours, "L. W." "Again! Three terrible nights for the three principal conspirators. The devil is in the business, I believe. Now, Dick, I have to call on Lady Woodroffe. Before I go to see this lady----" "I sincerely hope she will treat you as she did me. The manners of the aristocracy never showed to such advantage in my experience." "Before I go to see this lady----" Sir Robert repeated. Again Richard interrupted him. "We cannot afford to wait any longer. Mrs. Haveril's condition forbids it. I have determined to write to Humphrey. I shall begin by informing him of his father's death. I shall invite him to join me in paying his father's debts. I shall then advertise the death of Anthony Woodroffe in the Marylebone Infirmary as the father of Sir Humphrey Woodroffe. That will make him do something. If he likes to go to law, we will meet him; if he wishes to see me, I will tell him everything." "Why not go to him at once without any letter?" "Because he will thus learn, in the most dramatic way possible, the name and the social position of his real father." "Dick, you make this a personal matter." "Yes, I do." He became suddenly vindictive. "The scoundrel wanted Molly to marry him secretly, and live secretly with him--you understand that--while he was making love to Hilarie Woodroffe." "It is steep, certainly steep. But perhaps he did not mean----" "Doctor, you know the kind of men they are--this Johnnie and his friends. They have no honour, as they have no heart; they are rotten through and through--rotten and corrupt." "Dick, there are others to be considered." "I will make the whole story public--I will write a play on it." "Is this revenge or justice, Dick?" "I don't care which. Revenge is wild justice." "When are these letters to be written?" "To-day--this morning." "Dick"--the doctor laid a persuasive hand upon his arm--"you don't understand what it is you are doing. Wait till this evening. Give me, say, eight--ten hours. Let me beg you to wait till this evening. If I can effect nothing in twelve hours--with the principals--the two--the three principals concerned--you shall then do as you please." "Well, if I must---- If you really think---- Well, I will wait; but I will have no compromise. I could forgive him anything--his insolence and his contempt, but not----" "Love has many shapes, my Richard. He may become a soldier--but a hangman, an executioner, he who brandishes the cat-o'-nine-tails--no, Dick, no--that _rôle_ does not suit Love. Stay thy hand----" Dick turned away. "Take your twelve hours." "I am going, then, at once--to Lady Woodroffe." CHAPTER XXV. THE FIRST MOTHER.