Faversham looked down upon him, shuddering.  Then perceiving that the door into the library stood ajar, he entered the room.  There stood the chair on which he had leant, when the chains of his slavery fell from him.  There—­on the table—­was the jewel—­the little Venus with fluttering enamel drapery, standing tiptoe within her hoop of diamonds, which he had seen Melrose take up and handle during their dispute.  Why was it there?  Faversham had no idea.

And there on the writing-desk lay a large sheet of paper with a single line written upon it in Melrose’s big and sprawling handwriting.  That was new.  It had not been there, when Faversham last stood beside the table.  The pen was thrown down upon it, and a cigar lay in the ashtray, as though the writer had been disturbed either by a sudden sound, or by the irruption of some thought which had led him into the gallery to call Dixon.

Faversham stooped to look at it: 

“I hereby revoke all the provisions of the will executed by me on ...”

No more.  The paper was worthless.  The will would stand.  Faversham stood motionless, the silence booming in his ears.

“A fool would put that in his pocket,” he said to himself, contemptuously.  Then conscious of a new swarm of ideas assailing him, of new dangers, and a new wariness, he returned to the gallery, pacing it till the police appeared.  They came in force, within the hour, accompanied by Undershaw.

* * * * *

The old chiming clock set in the garden-front of Duddon had not long struck ten.  Cyril Boden had just gone to bed.  Victoria sat with her feet on the fender in Tatham’s study still discussing with him Felicia’s astonishing performance of the afternoon.  She found him eagerly interested in it, to a degree which surprised her; and they passed from it only to go zealously together into various plans for the future of mother and daughter—­plans as intelligent as they were generous.  The buzz of a motor coming up the drive surprised them.  There were no visitors in the house, and none expected.  Victoria rose in amazement as Undershaw walked into the room.

“A horrible thing has happened.  I felt that you must know before anybody—­with those two poor things in your house.  Dixon has told me that Miss Melrose saw her father this afternoon.  I have come to bring you the sequel.”

He told his story.  Mother and son turned pale looks upon each other.  Within a couple of hours of the moment when he had turned his daughter from his doors!  Seldom indeed do the strokes of the gods fall so fitly.  There was an awful satisfaction in the grim story to some of the deepest instincts of the soul.

“Some poor devil he has ruined, I suppose!” said Tatham, his grave young face lifted to the tragic height of the event.  “Any clue?”