sorry, for I should have liked him to lose his thirty thousand pounds
as well as his wife, but it can't be helped. It was a game of bluff,
and now that the bladder has been pricked I haven't a leg to stand
on."

Then, taking a pen, he wrote on a sheet of paper which he inserted in
the will, "Dear B.,--You must return the Honham mortgages to Mr.
Edward Cossey. As you are not my legal wife the consideration upon
which he transferred them fails, and you cannot hold them in equity,
nor I suppose would you wish to do so.--W. Q."

Having put all the papers away, he shut the safe at the moment that
the clerk whom he had deputed to watch his wife knocked at the door
and entered.

"Well?" said his master.

"Well, sir, I watched the woman. She stopped in the passage for a
minute, and then George, Squire de la Molle's man, came out and spoke
to her. I got quite close so as to hear, and he said, 'You'd better
get out of this.'

"'Where to?' she answered. 'I'm afraid.'

"'Back to London,' he said, and gave her a sovereign, and she got up
without a word and slunk off to the station followed by a mob of
people. She is in the refreshment room now, but George sent word to
say that they ought not to serve her with any drink."

"What time does the next train go--7.15, does it not?" said Mr. Quest.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, go back to the station and keep an eye upon that woman, and
when the time comes get me a first-class return ticket to London. I
shall go up myself and give her in charge there. Here is some money,"
and he gave him a five-pound note, "and look here, Jones, you need not
trouble about the change."

"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, a