That evening Alf called at Bobby\'s lodgings and apologised frankly.

"I know I said what I shouldn\'t, sir," he admitted. "But it fairly tortured me to see you along of a chap like that Burt."

"He\'s all right," said Bobby coldly.

Alf smiled that sickly smile of his.

"Ah, you\'re innocent, Mr. Chislehurst," he said. "Only wish I knew as little as you do."

Alf in fact was moving on and up again in his career; walking warily in consequence, and determined to do nothing that should endanger his position with the powers that be. This was the motive that inspired his apology to Mr. Chislehurst and caused him likewise to make approaches to his old schoolmaster, Mr. Pigott.

The old Nonconformist met the advances of his erstwhile pupil with genial brutality.

"What\'s up now, Alf?" he asked. "Spreading the treacle to catch the flies. Mind ye don\'t catch an hornet instead then!"

The remark may have been made in innocence, but Alf looked sharply at the speaker and retired in some disorder. His new stir of secret busyness was in fact bringing him into contact with unusual company, as Mrs. Trupp discovered by accident. One evening she had occasion to telephone on behalf of her husband to the garage. A voice that seemed familiar replied.

"Who\'s that?" she asked.

The answer came back, sharp as an echo,

"Who\'s that?"

"I\'m Mrs. Trupp. I want to speak to Alfred Caspar."

Then the voice muttered and Alfred took the receiver.

Later Mrs. Trupp told her husband of the incident.

"I\'m certain it was Captain Royal," she said with emphasis.

The old surgeon expressed no surprise.

"I daresay," he said. "Alf\'s raising money for some business scheme. He told me so."

Now if Alf\'s attempts on Ruth in the days between the birth of the child and her marriage to Ernie were known to Mrs. Trupp, the connection of the little motor-engineer and Royal was only suspected by her. A chance word of Ruth\'s had put her on guard; and that was all. Now with the swift natural intuition for the ways of evil-doers, which the innocent woman, once roused, so often reveals as by miracle, she flashed to a conclusion.

"Alf\'s blackmailing him!" she said positively.

"I shouldn\'t be surprised," her husband answered calmly.

His wife put her hand upon his shoulder.

"How can you employ a man like that, William?" she said, grave and grieved.

It was an old point of dispute between them. Now he took her hand and stroked it.

"My dear," he said, "when a bacteriologist has had a unique specimen under the microscope for years he\'s not going to abandon it for a scruple."

A few days later Mrs. Trupp was walking down Borough Lane past the Star when she saw Alf and Ruth cross each other on the pavement fifty yards in front. Neither stopped, but Alf shot a sidelong word in the woman\'s ear as he slid by serpent-wise. Ruth marched on with a toss of her head, and Mrs. Trupp noted the furtive look in the eyes of her husband\'s chaffeur as he met her glance and passed, touching his cap.

Mindful of her conversation with her husband, she followed Ruth home and boarded her instantly.

"Ruth," she asked, "I want to know something. You must tell me for your own good. Alfred\'s got no hold over you?"

Ruth drew in her breath with the sound, almost a hiss, of a sword snatched from its scabbard. Then slowly she relaxed.

"He\'s not got the sway over me not now," she said in a still voice, with lowered eyes. "Only thing he\'s the only one outside who knaws Captain Royal\'s the father of little Alice."

Mrs. Trupp eyed her under level brows.

"Oh, he does know that?" she said.

Ruth was pale.

"Yes, \'M," she said. "See Alf used to drive him that summer at the Hohenzollern."

Mrs. Trupp was not entirely satisfied.

"I don\'t see how Alfred can hold his knowledge over you," she remarked.

"Not over me," answered Ruth, raising her eyes. "Over him."

"Over who?"

"Captain Royal," said Ruth; and added slowly—"And I\'d be sorry for anyone Alf got into his clutches—let alone her father............