"Yes, just so," the clerk answered calmly. "He didn't mention your name. But perhaps he's coming back by-and-by to settle for you." Guy knew better. He saw through the man's whole black nature at once. "I've been robbed," he said slowly. "I've been robbed and deserted. I must follow the man and compel him to disgorge. When I've got the cash back I'll return and pay you. ... No, I won't, though. I forgot. I'll take it home to the bank for Cyril." The clerk gazed at him with a smile of pitying contempt. Mad, mad; quite mad! The loss of his fortune had, no doubt, unhinged this shareholder's reason. But Guy, never heeding him, rushed out into the street and hailed a passing cab. "Temple Flats," he cried aloud, and drove to Nevitt's chambers. Too late, once more! The housekeeper told him Mr. Nevitt was out. He'd just started off, portmanteau and all, as hard as a hansom could drive, to Waterloo Station. "Waterloo, then!" Guy shouted, in wild despair, to the cabman. "We must follow this man post haste. Alive or dead, I won't rest till I catch him!" It was an unhappy phrase. In the events that came after, it was remembered against him. CHAPTER XXI. COLONEL KELMSCOTT'S PUNISHMENT. While Montague Nevitt was thus congenially engaged in pulling off his treble coup of settling his own share in the Rio Negro deficit, pocketing three thousand pounds, pro tem, for incidental expenses, and getting Guy Waring thoroughly into his power by his knowledge of a forgery, two other events were taking place elsewhere, which were destined to prove of no small importance to the future of the twins and their immediate surroundings. Things generally were converging towards a crisis in their affairs. Colonel Kelmscott's wrong-doing was bearing first-fruit abundantly. For as soon as Granville Kelmscott received that strangely-worded note from Gwendoline Gildersleeve, he proceeded, as was natural, straight down, in his doubt, to his father's library. There, bursting into the room, with Gwendoline's letter still crushed in his hand in the side pocket of his coat, and a face like thunder, he stood in the attitude of avenging fate before his father's chair, and gazed down upon him angrily. "What does THIS mean?" he asked, in a low but fuming voice, brandishing the note before his eyes as he spoke. "Is every one in the county to be told it but I? Is everybody else to hear my business before you tell me a word of it? A letter comes to me this morning--no matter from whom--and here's what it says: 'I know you're not the eldest son, and that somebody else is the heir of Tilgate.' Surely, if anybody was to know, _I_ should have known it first. Surely, if I'm to be turned adrift on the world, after being brought up to think myself a man of means so long, I should, at least, be turned adrift with my eyes open." Colonel Kelmscott gazed at him open-mouthed with horror.