First he looked through his will.  It had been made some years ago, and was entirely in favour of his wife, or, rather, of his reputed wife, Belle.

“It may as well stand,” he said aloud; “if anything happens to me she’ll take about ten thousand under it, and that was what she brought me.”  Taking the pen he went through the document carefully, and wherever the name of “Belle Quest” occurred he put a X, and inserted these words, “Gennett, commonly known as Belle Quest,” Gennett being Belle’s maiden name, and initialled the correction.  Next he glanced at the Statement.  It contained a full and fair account of his connection with the woman who had ruined his life.  “I may as well leave it,” he thought; “some day it will show Belle that I was not quite so bad as I seemed.”

He replaced the statement in a brief envelope, sealed and directed it to Belle, and finally marked it, “Not to be opened till my death.—­W.  Quest.”  Then he put the envelope away in the safe and took up the will for the same purpose.  Next it on the table lay the deeds executed by Edward Cossey transferring the Honham mortgages to Mr. Quest in consideration of his abstaining from the commencement of a suit for divorce in which he proposed to join Edward Cossey as co-respondent.  “Ah!” he thought to himself, “that game is up.  Belle is not my legal wife, therefore I cannot commence a suit against her in which Cossey would figure as co-respondent, and so the consideration fails.  I am sorry, for I should have liked him to lose his thirty thousand pounds as well as his wife, but it can’t be helped.  It was a game of bluff, and now that the bladder has been pricked I haven’t a leg to stand on.”

Then, taking a pen, he wrote on a sheet of paper which he inserted in the will, “Dear B.,—­You must return the Honham mortgages to Mr. Edward Cossey.  As you are not my legal wife the consideration upon which he transferred them fails, and you cannot hold them in equity, nor I suppose would you wish to do so.—­W.  Q.”

Having put all the papers away, he shut the safe at the moment that the clerk whom he had deputed to watch his wife knocked at the door and entered.

“Well?” said his master.

“Well, sir, I watched the woman.  She stopped in the passage for a minute, and then George, Squire de la Molle’s man, came out and spoke to her.  I got quite close so as to hear, and he said, ’You’d better get out of this.’

“‘Where to?’ she answered.  ‘I’m afraid.’

“‘Back to London,’ he said, and gave her a sovereign, and she got up without a word and slunk off to the station followed by a mob of people.  She is in the refreshment room now, but George sent word to say that they ought not to serve her with any drink.”

“What time does the next train go—­7.15, does it not?” said Mr. Quest.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, go back to the station and keep an eye upon that woman, and when the time comes get me a first-class return ticket to London.  I shall go up myself and give her in charge there.  Here is some money,” and he gave him a five-pound note, “and look here, Jones, you need not trouble about the change.”