This, in brief, was Ruthven’s general scheme of campaign; and the entire affair had taken some sort of shape, and was slowly beginning to move, when Neergard’s illness came as an absolute check, just as the first papers were about to be served on him.

There was nothing to do but wait until Neergard got well, because his attorneys simply scoffed at any suggestion of settlement ex curia, and Ruthven didn’t want a suit involving his wife’s name while he and Selwyn were in the same hemisphere.

But he could still continue an unobtrusive search for the whereabouts of his wife, which he did.  And the chances were that his attorneys would find her without great difficulty, because Selwyn had not the slightest suspicion that he was being followed.

* * * * *

In these days Selwyn’s life was methodical and colourless in its routine to the verge of dreariness.

When he was not at the Government proving grounds on Sandy Hook he remained in his room at Lansing’s, doggedly forcing himself into the only alternate occupation sufficient to dull the sadness of his mind—­the preparation of a history of British military organisation in India, and its possible application to present conditions in the Philippines.

He had given up going out—­made no further pretense; and Boots let him alone.

Once a week he called at the Gerards’, spending most of his time while there with the children.  Sometimes he saw Nina and Eileen, usually just returned or about to depart for some function; and his visit, as a rule, ended with a cup of tea alone with Austin, and a quiet cigar in the library, where Kit-Ki sat, paws folded under, approving of the fireside warmth in a pleasureable monotone.

On such evenings, late, if Nina and Eileen had gone to a dance, or to the opera with Boots, Austin, ruddy with well-being and shamelessly slippered, stretched luxuriously in the fire warmth, lazily discussing what was nearest to him—­his children and wife, and the material comfort which continued to attend him with the blessing of that heaven which seems so largely occupied in fulfilling the desires of the good for their own commercial prosperity.

Too, he had begun to show a peculiar pride in the commercial development of Gerald, speaking often of his gratifying application to business, the stability of his modest position, the friends he was making among men of substance, their regard for him.

“Not that the boy is doing much of a business yet,” he would say with a tolerant shrug of his big fleshy shoulders, “but he’s laying the foundation for success—­a good, upright, solid foundation—­with the doubtful scheming of Neergard left out”—­at that time Neergard had not yet gone to pieces, physically—­“and I expect to aid him when aid is required, and to extend to him, judiciously, such assistance, from time to time, as I think he may require. . . .  There’s one thing—­”