"Fargus's Broadway Oyster House!" he shouted. "Ten dollars an hour—drive like the devil!"
The hansom shaved the corner, hung a moment on one wheel and rocked up the street. In Bofinger there were two movements, a physical collapse, as he sank back inertly into the corner, and an acute nervous excitation of the mental faculties which, soaring above the surrender of the body, absorbed in a few minutes, with the compressed energy of so many hours, every detail of his perilous situation. His reflections, jumbled and rapid as a kaleidoscope, ran thus:
"Two thirds gone at a blow, two thirds of a million lost forever by his turning up! How in the devil did he manage it? The third, the third, the dower right! What will become of that? Can it be saved? What is the law? Does the second marriage forfeit the dower of the first, if the husband turns up? If so we are ruined. There's not a doubt in the world that there was a plot. Fargus planned it all out. What am I going to do? I must get hold of him—yes—or he'll disappear again. If he goes anywhere he'll go to one of his Oyster Houses to be recognized again. He must have discovered everything seven years ago, but how—not from me. From Sheila? She talked perhaps in her sleep, or he found her accounts and guessed the rest. If he got a clew he could have put a detective on it and everything would have come out. But what gave him his clew? Not me. Sheila? But she had no reason to ruin herself."
At this point he took his head in his hands and said desperately:
"I'm wasting time. What does it matter how it happened. That's not the point. Two thirds gone and only the dower right left—if it is left; why should it be left? The law is probably the other way. What am I going to do?"
All at once he sat up.
"I have it. Bring an action of conspiracy against Fargus with intent to defraud his wife of her dower rights. Hell, am I losing my wits! Of course. Desertion and conspiracy to defraud. Plain as day! But the devil of it is I must get hold of him. Oh, what a fool I was to let him slip away again! Anyhow I can get an injunction on the property this afternoon, at once. But first for Fargus!"
At the restaurant he found everything in bewilderment. An hour before, Fargus had entered, and after having been recognized by his old employees had departed.
"Oh, the scoundrel!" he cried, rushing out, "he has established his identity and has gotten off."
As he fled from the restaurant his shoulder was suddenly clutched and turning in alarm he beheld the greedy features of Sammamon, who, running out of the court-house at his heels, had caught the address flung to the cabman. The money-lender, panting and distracted, cried to him all out of breath: