t was impossible to drive her away from him.
She would look up in his face and he could not but embrace her. Then
there had come a passionate flood of tears and she was in his arms.
How he had escaped he hardly knew, but he did know that he had
promised to be with her again before two days should have passed.

On the day named he wrote to her a letter excusing himself, which was
at any rate true in words. He had been summoned, he said, to Liverpool
on business, and must postpone seeing her till his return. And he
explained that the business on which he was called was connected with
the great American railway, and, being important, demanded his
attention. In words this was true. He had been corresponding with a
gentleman at Liverpool with whom he had become acquainted on his
return home after having involuntarily become a partner in the house
of Fisker, Montague, and Montague. This man he trusted and had
consulted, and the gentleman, Mr Ramsbottom by name, had suggested
that he should come to him at Liverpool. He had gone, and his conduct
at the Board had been the result of the advice which he had received;
but it may be doubted whether some dread of the coming interview with
Mrs Hurtle had not added strength to Mr Ramsbottom's invitation.

In Liverpool he had heard tidings of Mrs Hurtle, though it can hardly
be said that he obtained any trustworthy information. The lady after
landing from an American steamer had been at Mr Ramsbottom's office,
inquiring for him, Paul; and Mr Ramsbottom had thought that the
inquiries were made in a manner indicating danger. He therefore had
spoken to a fellow-traveller with Mrs Hurtle, and the fellow-traveller
had opined that Mrs Hurtle was 'a queer card.' 'On board ship we all
gave it up to her that she was about the handsomest woman we had ever
seen, but we all said that there was a bit of the wild cat in her
breeding.' Then Mr Ramsbottom had asked whether the lady was a widow.
'There was a man on board from Kansas,' said the fellow-traveller,
'who knew a man named Hurtle at Leavenworth, who was separated from
his wife and is still alive. There was, according to him, a queer
story about the man and his wife having fought a duel with pistols,
and then having separated.' This Mr Ramsbottom, who in an earlier
stage of the affair had heard something of Paul and Mrs Hurtle
together, managed to communicate to the young man. His advice about
the railway company was very clear and general, an