There was no cablegram, of course. Dickey Bulmer, who had become a waking nightmare to the unhappy shipowner, had said there wouldn't be--said it twelve hours ago, after wringing from Verity the astounding admission that Iris was on board the _Andromeda_. It was not because the vessel was overdue that David confessed. Bulmer, despite his sixty-eight years, was an acute man of business. Moreover, he was blessed with a retentive memory, and he treasured every word of the bogus messages from Iris concocted by her uncle. They were lucid at first, but under the stress of time they wore thin, grew disconnected, showed signs of the strain imposed on their author's imagination. Bulmer, a typical Lancashire man, blended in his disposition a genial openhandedness with a shrewd caution. He could display a princely generosity in dealing with Verity as the near relative and guardian of his promised wife; to the man whom he suspected of creating the obstacles that kept her away from him he applied a pitiless logic. The storm had burst unexpectedly. Bulmer came to dinner, ate and drank and smoked in quiet amity until David's laboring muse conveyed his niece's latest "kind love an' good wishes," and then---- "Tell you wot," said Dickey, "there's another five thousand due to-morrow on the surveyor's report." "There is," said Verity, knowing that his guest and prospective partner alluded to the new steamer in course of construction on the Clyde. "Well, it won't be paid." David lifted his glass of port to hide his face. Was this the first rumbling of the tempest? Though expected hourly, he was not prepared for it. His hand trembled. He dared not put the wine to his lips. "Wot's up now?" he asked. "You're playin' some underhand game on me, David, an' I won't stand it," was the unhesitating reply. "You're lyin' about Iris. You've bin lyin' ever since she disappeared from Bootle. Show me 'er letters an' their envelopes, an' I'll find the money. But, of course, you can't. They don't exist. Now, own up as man to man, an' I'll see if this affair can be settled without the lawyers. You know wot it means once _they_ take hold." Then David set down the untasted wine and told the truth. Not all--that was not to be dreamed of. In the depths of his heart he feared Bulmer. The old man's repute for honesty was widespread. He would fling his dearest friend into prison for such a swindle as that arranged between Coke and the shipowner. But it was a positive relief to divulge everything that concerned Iris. From his pocket-book David produced her frayed letter, and Bulmer read it slowly, aloud, through eyeglasses held at a long focus.