“I saw what was to be said against it.  But I weighed all the evidence carefully.  You were an injured man; you’d made a great fight and you’d won—­as far as one man can win against the world.  I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t called on to strike you down a second time, after you’d scrambled up so pluckily.  Evie is very dear to me; I don’t say that I should see her married to you without some misgiving; but I decided that you deserved her.  It was a great responsibility to take, but I took it and made up my mind to—­let her go.”

“Oh, you’re a good man!  I didn’t think there was such mercy in the world.”

Ford flung out the words in a cry that was half a groan and half a shout of triumph.  Miriam choked back a sob.  The neat little man shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.

“There’s one thing I should like to ask,” he pursued, “among the many that I don’t know anything about, and that I don’t care to inquire into.  How did you come by the name of this lady’s father, my old friend Herbert Strange?”

Ford and Miriam exchanged swift glances.  She shook her head, and he took his cue.

“I happened to see it in a—­a sort of—­paper.  I had no idea it was that of a real person.  I fancied it had come out of a novel—–­ or something like that.  I didn’t mean to keep it, but it got fastened on me.”

“Very odd,” was his only comment.  “Isn’t it, Miriam?

“Now,” he added, “I suppose you’ve had all you want of me, so I’ll say good-night.”

He held out his hand, which Ford grasped, clinched rather, in both his own.

“God bless you!” Wayne murmured, still tremulously.  “God bless you—­my boy, and bring everything out right.  Miriam, I suppose you’ll come in and see me before you go to bed.”

They watched him shuffle his way out of the room, and watched the door long after he had closed it.  When at last Miriam turned her eyes on Ford they were luminous with the relief of her own defeat.

“You see!” she cried, triumphantly.  “You see the difference between him and me—­between his spirit and mine!  Now which of us was right?”

“You were.”

XIX

The one thing clear to Miriam on the following day was that she had ruined everything with astonishing completeness—­a curious result to come from what she was firmly convinced was “doing right.”  She had calculated that, by a moderate measure of suffering to Evie, and a large one to Ford, Evie’s ultimate welfare at least would be secured.  Now everything was being brought to grief together.  Out of such a wreck nothing could be saved.