said to himself, "he shall find I have been even
with him." He looked at his watch. Was it possible to save the last
train and get back that night? No--the last train had gone. Would she
take advantage of his absence to escape? He had little fear of it. She
would never have allowed her aunt to send him to Lord Winwood's house,
if she had felt the slightest suspicion of his discovering the truth in
that quarter. Returning by the first train the next morning, he might
feel sure of getting back in time. Meanwhile he had the hours of the
night before him. He could give his mind to the serious question that
must be settled before he left London--the question of repaying the
forty thousand pounds. There was but one way of getting the money now.
Sir Joseph had executed his Will; Sir Joseph's death would leave his
sole executor and trustee (the lawyer had said it!) master of his
fortune. Turlington determined to be master of it in four-and-twenty
hours--striking the blow, without risk to himself, by means of another
hand. In the face of the probabilities, in the face of the facts, he had
now firmly persuaded himself that Sir Joseph was privy to the fraud
that had been practiced on him. The Marriage-Settlement, the Will, the
presence of the family at his country house--all these he believed to be
so many stratagems invented to keep him deceived until the last moment.
The truth was in those words which he had overheard between Sir Joseph
and Launce--and in Launce's presence (privately encouraged, no doubt) at
Muswell Hill. "Her father shall pay me for it doubly: with his purse and
with his life." With that thought in his heart, Richard Turlington wound
his way through the streets by the river-side, and stopped at a blind
alley called Green Anchor Lane, infamous to this day as the chosen
resort of the most abandoned wretches whom London can produce.

The policeman at the corner cautioned him as he turned into the alley.
"They won't hurt _me!_" he answered, and walked on to a public-house at
the bottom of the lane.

The landlord at the door silently recognized him, and led the way
in. They crossed a room filled with sailors of all nations drinking;
ascended a staircase at the back of the house, and stopped at the door
of the room on the second floor. There the landlord spoke for the first
time. "He has outrun his allowance, sir, as usual. You will find him
with hardly a rag on his back. I doubt if he will last much longer. He
had