Think over what had just been said to him! Martin Gurwood could do that without a second bidding. The words were ringing in his ears; the sense they conveyed seemed clogging and deadening his brain. Humphrey Statham in love with Alice Claxton--with his Alice--with the woman whom he had come to look upon as his own, and in whose sweet companionship he had fondly hoped to pass the remainder of his life! Her attraction must be great, indeed, if she could win the affections of such a man as Statham--calm, shrewd, and practical, not likely to be influenced merely by a pretty face or an interesting manner. The news came upon Martin like a thunderbolt. In all the long hours which he had devoted to the consideration of his love for Alice--to self-probing and examination--the idea of any rivalry had never entered into his mind. Not that, owing to Alice's secluded life or peculiar position, Martin had imagined himself secure; but the idea had never crossed his mind. She was there, and he loved her; that was all he knew. Something like a pang of jealousy, indeed, he experienced, on reading Humphrey's letter, telling of Mr. Henrich Wetter's visits to Pollington-terrace; but that, though it had the effect of inducing him to start for London, was but a temporary trouble. He had guessed from what Humphrey wrote, he was sure from what Humphrey said, that this Wetter was not the style of man to captivate a woman of Alice's refinement; and he felt that the principal reason for putting a stop to his visits would be the preventing any chance of Alice's being exposed to annoyance or insult. But what he had just heard placed matters in a very different light. Here was Humphrey Statham avowing his love for Alice; Humphrey, his own familiar friend, whom he had consulted in his trouble when the story of the Claxton mystery was first revealed to shim by Doctor Haughton; Humphrey, who had been the first to see Alice with a view of opening negotiations with her at the time when they so misjudged her real character and position, and who, as Martin well recollected, even then was impressed with her beauty and her modesty, and returned to fight her battles with him. Yes, Humphrey Statham had been her first champion; but that was no reason he should be her last. That gave him no monopoly of right to love and tend her. Was there any baseness, any treachery, Martin wondered, in his still cherishing his own feelings towards Alice, after having heard his friend's confession? Let him think it out then and there; for that was the crowning moment of his life.