“Come, come, Urquhart. This is all nonsense. It was too large a sum to leave idle at my bankers,--besides, there's always a risk, you know,--so I invested it,--in Trust Funds, of course. One can't buy and sell stock over a counter. There are delays of correspondence. And I've been so devilish busy with wedding preparations, you know, that I haven't attended to it. I'll write at once to my broker. There.” Urquhart listened with an incredulous smile. He gathered up his hat and gloves. “Sometimes it pleases me to act the Godforsaken fool you did yourself the pleasure to call me. Sometimes it doesn't. I'll give you till to-morrow night to send me your cheque for £2,000 with the per cent interest. If you don't--” “Well, my dear friend, what if I don't?” “I'll publish it all over London that you have bagged the money--and make sure that Miss Defries hears it.” “And what if I kick you down the ten flights of stairs of these mansions?” snarled Roderick, his hands clenched and the sweat standing on his forehead through the effort to maintain self-control. “I'll publish it at once,” said the young man, languidly. “Good day, Usher. Till tomorrow evening, then?” He nodded superciliously and disappeared, leaving his enemy impotent with wrath and fear. “Revengeful devil!” he exclaimed stupidly. The servant came in to clear away the breakfast things. Roderick pushed aside the _portiere_ and went into his studio. The great window was open. He stood by it, heedless of the raw, damp air. From beneath the veil of fog came the uncanny rumbling of the traffic in the street. Everything was hidden. He seemed to be an immeasurable height from the earth. All below was abysmal, inscrutable. A thought shuddered through his being. One plunge into the unknown, and the sordid fears of living would be at an end. But the fog made him cough, and the tiny check threw him back again, like a wheel, into his normal groove. He shut the window and walked moodily to the studio fire. Two thousand pounds had to be obtained by to-morrow night. Otherwise, social disaster and loss of Ella. He had not the faith to trust her with his wretched story. “I promised to marry a gentleman, and not a thief,” he heard her saying. The tone of her voice stabbed him with a greater pain than he had thought himself capable of feeling. There was only one way out of it,--another appeal to his father. He would go down to Ayresford at once. It was characteristic of him that he shivered at the thought of the comfortless journey. A few hours later he stood, white and haggard, in the porch of Mr. Usher's house, bidding his father good-bye. It was fresh and clear at Ayresford, and the gathering twilight deepened the country hush of things. “I've always looked upon myself as a bad lot, but compared with you I'm an innocent babe,” said Roderick, in a queer, low voice. The old man put out a deprecatory hand and looked at his son out of expressionless blue eyes.