"Nonsense!" he declared. "You see that policeman there? He is watching us now. Let go the revolver and be off. I don't want to give you into custody--my life is worth something for others as well as myself--and I shall certainly do it unless you obey me." She gave a little sob, and her fingers relaxed their hold upon the revolver, which Deane transferred into his own pocket. She glided away into the crowd. Deane stepped into his brougham, giving the man the address of the hotel where Winifred Rowan was staying. He leaned back in the seat, looking at the little weapon in his hands. Somehow, the fact of his escape, instead of bringing any exultation with it, seemed to depress him strangely. Deane had never called himself or believed himself to be a religious man, yet there was certainly one principle which had always been part of his creed,--to live and let live. He was not a greedy capitalist. He could look upon money without any desire to absorb it. Yet lately he seemed to have been forced into tortuous paths. From the moment when he had attempted to make use of Rowan as a tool, everything had gone against him. Rowan himself lay dead in that windy churchyard, and the words which had been spoken over Rowan's grave were still fresh in his memory. He had lost Lady Olive, of whom, in a way, he had been fond. And at her own bidding he was engaged to this strange, impenetrable girl, a situation which he could not wholly realize, and yet which he felt to be surrounded with danger and humiliation. Then there was this other,--Ruby Sinclair,--who had come to London expecting to find a fortune, and had found nothing but her uncle's dead body. She, too, looked upon him as a hungry schemer, the indirect cause of her uncle's death, a robber, if not a murderer! He looked at the little revolver, opened it carelessly, and laughed as he stared into the empty breech. It was unloaded, a brand-new toy which had never been discharged. He threw it into the opposite seat with a little gesture of contempt. All its tragedy seemed to have passed away. She had bought it to frighten him with. There had, after all, been no serious purpose in her mind. She too, perhaps, had hoped to play the part of extortioner. What was his offence, he asked himself, as his brougham glided along the Embankment. Simply this: there had been a claim presented for his mine, which was, without doubt, a fraud, which few people would ever have believed in, and which, in a court of law, would have stood but little chance of success. What a fool he had been not to defy Sinclair, to go to his directors and tell them the truth, to resist stoutly any claim the man might bring! Since his first compromise with Rowan, everything had gone wrong. It was unworthy for a man in his position to have allowed Rowan even to play the ambassador, apart from anything else. He saw very clearly in those few minutes where the mistake of his life had been. What he could not see was whither he was tending.