"You may have known your father, Ringrose, but you don't know human nature, or you wouldn't talk like that. Nothing is impossible--no crime--not even to the best of us--when the strain becomes more than we can bear. It is a pure question of strain and strength: which is the greater of the two. Every man has his breaking-point; your father was at his for years; it's a mystery to me how he held out so long. You must look at it sensibly, Ringrose. No thinking man will blame him, for the simple reason that every man who thinks knows very well that he might have done the same thing himself under the same pressure. Besides--give him a chance! With ten thousand pounds in his pocket----" "You're sure he had it in his pocket?" interrupted Harry. These arguments only galled his wounds. "Or else in a bag; it comes to the same thing." "In what shape would he have the money?" "Big notes and some gold." "Yet foul play's an impossibility!" "The numbers of the notes are known. Not one of them has turned up." "I care nothing about that," cried the boy wildly, "though it shows he hasn't spent them himself. Listen to me, Mr. Lowndes. I believe my father is dead, I believe he has been murdered: and I would rather that than what you say! But you claim to have been his friend? You raised this money for him? Very well; take my hand--here in his room--where I can see him now, all the time I'm talking to you--and swear that you will help me to clear this mystery up! We'll inspan the best detective in town, and take him with us to Dieppe, and never leave him till we get at the truth. I mean to live for nothing else. Swear that you will help me ... swear it here ... in his own room." The wild voice had come down to a broken whisper. Next moment it had risen again: the man hesitated. "Swear it! Swear it! Or you may have been my father's friend, but you are none from this hour to my mother and me." Lowndes spread his hands in an indulgent gesture. "Very well! I swear to help you to clear up this--mystery--as long as you think it is one." "That is all I want. Now tell me when the next train starts for town. It used to be nine-twenty?" "It is still." "You are returning to London yourself?" "Yes, by that train." "Then let us meet at the station. It is now eight. I--I want to be alone here for an hour or two. No, it will do me good, it will calm me. I feel I have been very rude to you, sir, but I have hardly known what I said. I am beside myself--beside myself!" And Harry Ringrose rushed from the room, and up the bare and sounding stairs of his empty home: it was from his own old bedroom that he heard Lowndes leave the house, and saw a dejected figure climbing the sloping drive with heavy steps.