Just here, oddly enough, he began to think of Felix—­that cold-blooded, unimaginative man, who knew absolutely nothing about how to treat a woman, and, for that matter, knew nothing about anything else in so far as the practical side of life was concerned.  The fool—­here his brow knit—­had not only broken up the final deal, in which everything had been fixed with Mullhallsen, the German banker, for an additional loan, but he had unearthed and compared certain certificates, in his fight to protect an obstinate old father.  Worse still, he had taken himself off to Australia to starve, instead of saving what he could out of the wreck.  Had he only listened to advice, the whole catastrophe might have been averted.

And this fool would have ruined his wife as well, had not he—­Dalton—­stepped in and saved her from burying herself in the wilderness.

As the memory of the scene with Felix when the stock-book was unearthed passed through his mind, his hand instinctively sought the bulge in his coat-pocket.  He must get rid of it and at once.  Just as the certificates had proved to be dangerous, so might this lace.

With this idea of his own peril possessing his mind his whole manner changed.  The air of triumph shown in his step and bearing when he left Marta’s door, due to his discovery of the fugitive and the terror his presence had inspired, was gone.  The old spectre always pursuing him stepped again to his side and linked arms.  His slinking, furtive air returned, and a certain well-defined fear, as if he dreaded being followed, showed itself in every glance.

Suddenly he caught sight of a well-patronized retreat, owned and operated by a Mrs. Blobbs, the Polish wife of an English cheap John, and with a quick sliding movement, he paused in front of the narrow door.  He had already taken in, from under his hat, the single gas-jet lighting up its collection of pinchbeck jewelry, watches, revolvers, satin shoes, fans, and other belongings of the unfortunate, and after peering up and down the street, he slipped in noiselessly, his countenance wearing that peculiar, shame-faced expression common to gentlemen on similar missions.  That it was not his first experience could be seen from the way he leaned far over the counter, dropped the filmy wad, and then straightened back—­ the gesture meaning that if any other customer should come in while his negotiations were in progress, he was not to be connected in any way with the article.

“Something rather good,” he said, pointing to the black roll.

The proprietress, a square-built woman, solid as a sack of salt, her waist-line marked by a string tightened just above a black alpaca apron, her dried-apple face surmounted by a dingy lace cap topped with a soiled red ribbon, eyed him cautiously, and remarked, after loosening out the mantilla:  “Dem teater gurls only vant such tings, and dey can pay nuddin’.  No, I vouldn’t even gif fife tollars.  Petter dake it somevares else.”