a great favourite
with his step-father. This roused Louis to a fury which was the more
dangerous in that Owen had begun to overtake him in strength, and the
fury could, therefore, find no outlet. Then Owen's mother died, and
Ravengar, senior, married again--a girl this time, who soon discovered
that the household in which she had planted herself was far too
bellicose to be comfortable. She abandoned her husband, and sought
consolation and sympathy with another widower, who also was blessed with
offspring. Such is the foolishness of women. You cannot cure a woman of
being one. But it must be said in favour of the third Mrs. Ravengar and
her consoler that they conducted their affair with praiseworthy
attention to outward decency. She went to America by one steamer, and
purchased a divorce in Iowa for two hundred dollars. He followed in the
next steamer, and they were duly united in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, the
Ravengar household, left to the ungoverned passions of three males,
became more and more impossible, and at length old Ravengar expired. In
his will he stated that it was only from a stern sense of justice that
he divided his considerable fortune in equal shares between Louis and
Owen. Had he consulted his inclination, he would have left one shilling
to Louis, and the remainder to Owen, who alone had been a true son to
him.

It was a too talkative will. Testators, like politicians, should never
explain.

Louis, who got as a favour half the fortune of which the whole was, in
his opinion, his by right, was naturally exasperated in the highest
degree by the terms of the indiscreet testament, and on the day of the
funeral he parted from the son of his step-mother, swearing, in a
somewhat melodramatic manner, that he would be revenged. Hugo was then
twenty-one, and for twenty-five years he had waited in vain for symptoms
of the revenge.

And now they met again, in the truest sense strangers. And each had a
reason for humouring the other, for each wanted to know what the other
had to do with Camilla Payne.

'So you're determined, Louis,' said Hugo lightly, 'to bring me to my
knees about the transfer of my business to a limited company, eh?'

'What on earth do you mean, man?' asked Ravengar, whose voice was always
gruff.

'I refer to Polycarp's visit yesterday.'

'I know nothing of it,' said Ravengar slowly, looking across the
wilderness of roofs.

'Then why are you here, Louis? Is your revenge at last matured?'