“Thank you, sir, I’m sure,” said Jones, to whom, his salary being a guinea a week, on which he supported a wife and family, a gift of four pounds was sudden wealth.

“Don’t thank me, but do as I tell you.  I will be down at the station at 7.10.  Meet me outside and give me the ticket.  That will do.”

When Jones had gone Mr. Quest sat down to think.

So George had loosed this woman on him, and that was the meaning of his mysterious warnings.  How did he find her?  That did not matter, he had found her, and in revenge for the action taken against the de la Molle family had brought her here to denounce him.  It was cleverly managed, too.  Mr. Quest reflected to himself that he should never have given the man credit for the brains.  Well, that was what came of underrating people.

And so this was the end of all his hopes, ambitions, shifts and struggles!  The story would be in every paper in England before another twenty-four hours were over, headed, “Remarkable occurrence at Boisingham Quarter Sessions.—­Alleged bigamy of a solicitor.” No doubt, too, the Treasury would take it up and institute a prosecution.  This was the end of his strivings after respectability and the wealth that brings it.  He had overreached himself.  He had plotted and schemed, and hardened his heart against the de la Molle family, and fate had made use of his success to destroy him.  In another few months he had expected to be able to leave this place a wealthy and respected man—­and now?  He laid his hand upon the table and reviewed his past life—­tracing it from year to year, and seeing how the shadow of this accursed woman had haunted him, bringing disgrace and terror and mental agony with it—­making his life a misery.  And now what was to be done?  He was ruined.  Let him fly to the utmost parts of the earth, let him burrow in the recesses of the cities of the earth, and his shame would find him out.  He was an impostor, a bigamist; one who had seduced an innocent woman into a mock marriage and then taken her fortune to buy the silence of his lawful wife.  More, he had threatened to bring an action for divorce against a woman to whom he knew he was not really married and made it a lever to extort large sums of money or their value.

What is there that a man in his position can do?

He can do two things—­he can revenge himself upon the author of his ruin, and he be bold enough, he can put an end to his existence and his sorrows at a blow.

Mr. Quest rose and walked to the door.  Halting there, he turned and looked round the office in that peculiar fashion wherewith the eyes take their adieu.  Then with a sigh he went.

Reaching his own house he hesitated whether or not to enter.  Had the news reached Belle?  If so, how was he to face her?  Her hands were not clean, indeed, but at any rate she had no mock marriage in her record, and her dislike of him had been unconcealed throughout.  She had never wished to marry him, and never for one single day regarded him otherwise than with aversion.