f this legacy is my friend and comrade," he
said, after a moment's silence. "We should have no difficulty in that
quarter. My mother is--Well, she's gone. There would be no one left to
question you. If you were only half shrewd the path would be clear."

"What about her?"

"Greta? She would be your wife."

"My wife?"

"In name. You would go back, as I told you, and say: 'I, whom you have
known as Paul Ritson, am really Paul Lowther, and therefore the
half-brother of the woman with whom I went through the ceremony of
marriage. This fact I learned immediately on reaching London. I bring
the lady back as I found her, and shall ask that the marriage--which is
no marriage--be annulled. I deliver up to the rightful heir, Hugh
Ritson, the estates of Allan Ritson, and make claim to the legacy left
me by my father, Robert Lowther.' This is what you have to say and do,
and every one will praise you for an honest and upright man."

"Very conscientious, no doubt; but what about him?"

"He will then be Paul Drayton, and a felon."

Drayton chuckled. "And what about her?"

"If he is in safe keeping, she will count for nothing."

"So I'm to be Paul Lowther."

"You are to pretend to be Paul Lowther."

"I told you afore, as it won't go into my nob, and no more it will,"
said Drayton, scratching his head.

"You shall have time to learn your lesson; you shall have it pat," said
Hugh Ritson. "Meantime--"

At that instant Drayton's eyes were riveted on the skylight with an
affrighted stare.

"Look yonder!" he whispered.

"What?"

"The face on the roof!"

Hugh Ritson plucked up the candle and thrust it over his head and
against the glass. "What face?" he said, contemptuously.

Again Drayton's head fell in shame at his abject fear.

There was a shuffling footstep on the ladder outside. Drayton held his
head aside, and listened. "The old woman," he mumbled. "What now?
Supper, I suppose."

CHAPTER XV.

At that moment there was a visitor in the bar down-stairs. He was an
elderly man, with shaggy eyebrows and a wizened face; a diminutive
creature with a tousled head of black and gray. It was Gubblum
Oglethorpe. The mountain peddler had traveled south to buy chamois
leather, and had packed a great quantity of it into a bundle, like a
panier, which he carried over one arm.

Since the wedding at Newlands, three days ago, Gubblum's lively
intelligence had run a good deal on his recollection of the man
resembling