Yes, the ways of Providence were wonderful, he felt. If he had not met Mr. Playdell.... and so forth.
But now Beatrice was his own. She might stray through the autumn woods by the side of Edmund Airey or any man whom she might meet at Abbeylands; she would feel upon her finger the ring that he had placed there—the ring that——
He sprang to his feet with a sudden cry.
“Good God! the Ring! the Ring!”
He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It pointed to four-seventeen.
He pulled out his watch. It pointed to four-twenty-two.
He rushed to the sofa where an overcoat was lying. He had it on him in a moment. He snatched up a railway guide and stuffed it into his pocket.
In another minute he was in a hansom, driving as fast as the hansomeer thought consistent with public safety—a trifle over that which the police authorities thought consistent with public safety—in the direction of the Northern Railway terminus.