displeasure—but has been followed to England by his American fiancée, Mrs Winifred Hurtle. Mrs Hurtle is determined to make Paul marry her. Roger has been Paul's mentor, and the two come into conflict over their attentions towards Hetta. In the meantime, Felix Carbury is torn between his physical attraction to Ruby and his financial need to pursue Marie Melmotte (he is emotionally indifferent to both of them). Ruby, after being beaten by her grandfather for not marrying a respectable local miller, John Crumb, runs away to London and finds refuge in the boarding house owned by her aunt, Mrs Pipkin—where, as it happens, Mrs Hurtle is lodging. Felix learns from Ruby about Mrs Hurtle's relationship with Paul and, coming into conflict with Mrs Hurtle over his attentions to Ruby, reveals all his new-found knowledge to his mother and sister. Hetta is devastated and breaks off her engagement to Paul. Meanwhile, to keep Paul away from the board meetings, Melmotte attempts to send Paul off to Mexico on a nominal inspection trip of the railway line, but Paul declines to go. Finding that they cannot get around Melmotte, Felix and Marie decide to elope to America. Marie steals a blank cheque from her father and arranges to meet Felix on the ship at Liverpool. Felix, who has been given money by Marie for his expenses, goes to his club and gambles it all away in card games after his friends resort to playing with ready money and not IOUs. Drunk and penniless, Felix returns to his mother's house, knowing the game is up. Meanwhile, after Melmotte has been alerted by his bank, Marie and her maid, who believe that Felix is already on the ship at Liverpool, are intercepted by the police before they can board the ship, and Marie is brought back to London, while Didon the maid boards the ship and sails to New York. Melmotte, who by this time has also become Member of Parliament for Westminster and the purchaser of a grand country estate belonging to Mr Longestaffe, also knows that his financial house of cards is nearing collapse. When Longestaffe and his son demand the purchase money for the estate Melmotte had bought, Melmotte forges his daughter's name to a document that will allow him to get at her money (money that Melmotte had put in her name precisely to protect it from creditors, and which