t his inventive brain had overcome the difficulty, and had hit upon a
device by which he might defy both doctors and coroner. If all went as
he had planned it, it was difficult to see any chance of detection.
In the case of a poorer man the fact that the girl's money reverted to
him might arouse suspicion, but he rightly argued that with his great
reputation no one would ever dream that such a consideration could have
weight with him.

Having sent the telegram off, and so taken a final step, John
Girdlestone felt more at his ease. He was proud of his own energy and
decision. As he walked very pompously and gravely down the village
street, his heart glowed within him at the thought of the long struggle
which he had maintained against misfortune. He passed over in his mind
all the successive borrowings and speculations and makeshifts and ruses
which the firm had resorted to. Yet, in spite of every danger and
difficulty, it still held up its head with the best, and would weather
the storm at last. He reflected proudly that there was no other man in
the City who would have had the dogged tenacity and the grim resolution
which he had displayed during the last twelve months. "If ever any one
should put it all in a book," he said to himself, "there are few who
would believe it possible. It is not by my own strength that I have
done it."

The man had no consciousness of blasphemy in him as he revolved this
thought in his mind. He was as thoroughly in earnest as were any of
those religious fanatics who, throughout history, have burned, sacked,
and destroyed, committing every sin under heaven in the name of a God of
peace and of mercy.

When he was half-way to the Priory he met a small pony-carriage, which
was rattling towards Bedsworth at a great pace, driven by a good-looking
middle-aged lady with a small page by her side. The merchant
encountered this equipage in a narrow country lane without a footpath,
and as it approached him he could not help observing that the lady wore
an indignant and gloomy look upon her features which was out of keeping
with their general contour. Her forehead was contracted into a very
decided frown, and her lips were gathered into what might be described
as a negative smile. Girdlestone stood aside to let her pass, but the
lady, by a sudden twitch of her right-hand rein, brought the wheels
across in so sudden a manner that they were within an ace of going over
his toes. He only saved