“Despard or Langhetti may have got them to do it. Perhaps that d----d girl did it. Smithers & Co. will make money enough out of the speculation to pay them. As for me and you, I begin to have a general but very accurate idea of ruin. You are getting squeezed pretty close up to the wall, dad, and they won’t give you time to breathe.” Before this conversation had ended the stranger had entered, and had gone up to the drawing-room. The servant came down to announce him. “What name?” asked Potts. “He didn’t give any.” Potts looked perplexed. “Come now,” said John. “This fellow has overreached himself at last. He’s come here; perhaps it won’t be so easy for him to get out. I’ll have all the servants ready. Do you keep up your spirits. Don’t get frightened, but be plucky. Bluff him, and when the time comes ring the bell, and I’ll march in with all the servants.” Potts looked for a moment at his son with a glance of deep admiration. “Johnnie,--you’ve got more sense in your little finger than I have in my whole body. Yes: we’ve got this fellow, whoever he is; and if he turns out to be what I suspect, then we’ll spring the trap on him, and he’ll learn what it is to play with edge tools.” With these words Potts departed, and, ascending the stairs, entered the drawing-room. The stranger was standing looking out of one of the windows. His attitude brought back to Potts’s recollection the scene which had once occurred there, when old Smithers was holding Beatrice in his arms. The recollection of this threw a flood of light on Potts’s mind. He recalled it with a savage exaltation. Perhaps they were the same, as John said--perhaps; no, most assuredly they must be the same. “I’ve got him now, any way,” murmured Potts to himself, “whoever he is.” The stranger turned and looked at Potts for a few moments. He neither bowed nor uttered any salutation whatever. In his look there was a certain terrific menace, an indefinable glance of conscious power, combined with implacable hate. The frown which usually rested on his brow darkened and deepened till the gloomy shadows that covered them seemed like thunder-clouds. Before that awful look Potts felt himself cowering involuntarily; and he began to feel less confidence in his own power, and less sure that the stranger had flung himself into a trap. However, the silence was embarrassing; so at last, with an effort, he said: “Well; is there any thing you want of me? I’m in a hurry.” “Yes,” said the stranger, “I reached the village to-day to call at the bank, but found it closed.” “Oh! I suppose you’ve got a draft on me, too.” “Yes,” said the stranger, mysteriously. “I suppose I may call it a draft.” “There’s no use in troubling your head about it, then,” returned Potts; “I won’t pay.” “You won’t?” “Not a penny.” A sharp, sudden smile of contempt flashed over the stranger’s face. “Perhaps if you knew what the draft is, you would feel differently.” “I don’t care what it is.”