ave betrothed herself to this forbidding, ugly, ageing, and terrible
man.

'You were engaged? Never! Perhaps you aren't aware that she was engaged
to Tudor?'

'I tell you we were engaged.'

'She accepted you?'

'Why not? I meant well by the girl.'

'And then she disappeared?'

Hugo spoke with a certain cynicism.

'How do you know?' Ravengar demanded angrily.

'I only guess.'

'Well, she did. I can't imagine why. I meant well by her. And the next
thing is, I find her working in your shop, and in the arms of that
scoundrel, Tudor.' He hesitated, and then, as he proceeded, his tones
softened to an appeal. 'Owen, why were you watching last night? I must
know. It's an affair of life or death to me.'

Hugo did not believe most of Ravengar's story, and he perceived the
difficulty of his own position and the necessity for caution.

'I was watching because Miss Payne thought herself in some mysterious
danger,' he said.

'She came to me, as you have done, to ask my help. And I won't hide from
you that it was she herself who informed me definitely that Tudor had
invited her to marry him, and that she had consented.'

'She shall not marry him!' cried Ravengar, exasperated.

'You are right,' said Hugo. 'She shall not. I have yet to be convinced
even that he meant to marry her.'

'The rascal! He and I had business relations for several years before I
discovered who he was. Of course, you know?'

'Indeed I don't,' said Hugo, 'if he isn't Francis Tudor.'

'He has as much right to the name of Tudor as you have to the name of
Hugo,' Ravengar sneered. 'He is the son of the man who dishonoured my
father's name by pretending to marry that woman in Minneapolis. Even if
I hated my father, I've no cause to love _that_ branch of our
complicated family connections.'

Hugo whistled.

'I did not think there was so much money there,' he said at length.

'There wasn't. The fellow came into twenty thousand two years ago, and
he has never earned a cent.'

'Yet he's living at the rate of five thousand a year at least.'

'It's like him!' Ravengar snorted. 'It's like him!'

'Perhaps he can't help it,' Hugo said queerly. 'Everyone isn't like you
and me.'

'He can help robbing me of my future wife!'

'But she left you of her own accord.'

'Owen, she must marry me. It is essential. You must bring your influence
to bear,' Ravengar burst out wildly. 'She must be my wife!'

'My dear fellow,' Hugo protested calmly, 'what are