hich you swore two minutes ago. If there is anyone mad in this room,
it is yourself. Your schemes show that queer mixture of amazing
ingenuity and amazing folly which is characteristic of madmen. Let us
hope you are mad, at any rate.'

'My schemes!' sneered Ravengar. 'You might at least tell the madman what
his schemes are.'

Hugo laughed.

'You must have been maturing the day's business quite a long time, my
boyhood's companion, my floater of public companies, my pearl of
financiers. Yes, decidedly parts of it were wonderfully ingenious. To
sow the place with pickpockets, to get at my cashiers, my
commissionaires, and my servers. To substitute your own false
shopwalkers for the genuine article. To arrange for the arrest of
important customers on preposterous charges of theft. To lock up a
hundred women in a gallery till they nearly died. To have my best and
most advertised bargains removed in the night. To deprive the
restaurants of food, and to employ women to turn them upside down. To
produce, as you contrived to do, a general air of pandemonium, and to
ruin the discipline of over three thousand of the best-trained employes
in England. All this, and much else which I do not mention, was devilish
clever in its conception, and the execution of it commands my
unqualified admiration. Especially having regard to the fact that you
contrived not to arouse my suspicions. I may tell you that certain
strange incidents which occurred in my establishment during the autumn
did indeed lead me vaguely to suspect that you were at work against me,
but you were sufficiently smart to put me off the track again. Let me
add that until this afternoon I did not perceive that your purchase of a
controlling share in the _Evening Herald_ was only a portion of a
mightier plan.'

'Really, Owen--'

'Don't waste your breath in denials. You will have none at all
presently, like Bentley.'

'Bentley?' repeated Ravengar, with a slight movement.

'Yes; but we will come to Bentley in a few minutes. I have enlarged to
you on your own cleverness. I must enlarge to you on your folly. What
folly! What was the end of all this to be, Ravengar? I have tried to put
myself in your place, and to follow your thoughts. You hate me. You
think I robbed you of a fortune, and that I helped to rob you of a
woman. You wished to buy my business, and add it to the roll of your
companies. And I deprived you of that triumph. Your hatred of me grew
and grew. Leadin