But Grenier was a careful rogue. After a boyhood of good training and education, he drifted into a bad set at the beginning of his adult career. Once, indeed, he endeavored to put his great natural abilities to some reasonable use by going on the stage. The industrious hardship of the early years of an actor's striving were not to his liking, however. No sooner had he attained a position of trust as manager of a touring company than he tampered with moneys intrusted to his care. He was not actually found out, but suspected and dismissed. Then the regular gradations of crime came naturally to him. Gambling, card-sharping, company frauds, even successful forgery, succeeded each other in their recognized sequence, until, at last, came detection and a heavy sentence, for the authorities had long waited for him to drop into the net. Now that he was free, he did not intend to revisit any of His Majesty's convict settlements if he could help it. His wits were sharpened, his cool intellect developed, by prison life and associations. He personally would keep clear of the law and make others support him. He would depend on two classes of contributories--fools, like Langdon, and slow-witted criminals, like Mason. Being a really clever man, it would be strange if his own middle path were not kept clear of fetters. In the mystery surrounding Philip Anson's influence over these two he scented interesting developments. Beginning with a young rake's attempt to ensnare a beautiful girl, he suddenly discovered a situation pregnant with the potentiality of gain to himself. It did not matter to him who paid him, whether Anson or Langdon. He would betray one or the other, or both impartially. Mason he liked. The man's rugged strength of character, his sledge-hammer villainy, his dogged acceptance of the leadership of a more skilled rascal, appealed to him. Mason was a tool, and a hard-hitting one. He would use him, safeguard him if he could, but use him anyhow. In the seclusion of Grenier's small flat Langdon poured out his spleen. Anson was the bane of his life. His stepfather was Anson's uncle, and the old idiot recently found out certain facts concerning the life led by his stepson that caused a family rupture. His mother endeavored to patch matters with ill success, and the baronet was intent on finding his sister's son, and atoning to him for years of neglect by making him his heir. Lady Louisa concealed nothing of this from her scapegrace son. She hoped to frighten him by the threatened loss of supplies. But neither fright nor hatred could bring him to leave London, and settle down to a quiet life in Devonshire, when, perhaps, the elderly naturalist's fit of indignation might gradually wear itself out. At this crisis came his discovery of Evelyn Atherley, and a mad desire to win her affections. He even dreamed of persuading her to marry him, and by this means succeed in rehabilitating himself with Sir Philip Morland.