"I ain't axing you to say it over. What's that?" Drayton cowered down. The bankrupt garret had dropped a cake of its rotten plaster. Hugh Ritson moved not a muscle; only the sidelong glance told of his contempt for the hulking creature's cowardice.
"The lawyer who has charge of this legacy is my friend and comrade," he said, after a moment's silence. "We should have no difficulty in that quarter. My mother is—Well, she's gone. There would be no one left to question you. If you were only half shrewd the path would be clear."
"What about her?"
"Greta? She would be your wife."
"My wife?"
"In name. You would go back, as I told you, and say: 'I, whom you have known as Paul Ritson, am really Paul Lowther, and therefore the half-brother of the woman with whom I went through the ceremony of marriage. This fact I learned immediately on reaching London. I bring the lady back as I found her, and shall ask that the marriage—which is no marriage—be annulled. I deliver up to the rightful heir, Hugh Ritson, the estates of Allan Ritson, and make claim to the legacy left me by my father, Robert Lowther.' This is what you have to say and do, and every one will praise you for an honest and upright man."
"Very conscientious, no doubt; but what about him?"
"He will then be Paul Drayton, and a felon."
Drayton chuckled. "And what about her?"
"If he is in safe keeping, she will count for nothing."