years of age, he was only twenty-seven inches
high. There is a portrait extant of him, with his
well-looking, good-sized wife beside him.

HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BARBARA'S HISTORY."

CHAPTER LXXII.  WHAT TO DO NEXT.

THERE are some emergencies in which men
must and can only turn to their own thoughts
for guidance—emergencies in which the least
experienced are better able to help themselves
than others are to help them; in which the
wisest counsel from without is of less value than
that counsel which comes from within. Such
was Saxon's position when he made the cruel
discovery of his cousin's baseness. He was
stunned—crushed—bewildered. He neither
knew how to act, nor what to think. A change
and a shadow seemed all at once to have come
over the face of the heavens. That simple faith
in his fellow-man which had made wealth so
pleasant, life so sweet, the present so sunny, and
the future so fair, was shaken suddenly to its
foundations. He felt like one who is overtaken
by an earthquake. Where his home stood but
a moment before, there is now a heap of fallen
masonry. Where his garden lay, all bright with
trees and flowers, there is now but a yawning
chasm. He dreads to move, to stand still, to go
backward or forward, lest the ground should
open and swallow him. There is nothing before
him, nothing behind him, but ruin.

As he had told Castletowers in the first
outbreak of his trouble, it was not, indeed, "the
money" that he lamented. He would have given
more than he had lost to believe again in William
Trefalden, and know him for "a good man and
true." It was not the money. He scarcely
thought of it. He was rich without it. Perhaps
—for he was beginning to loathe the wealth
which had wrought all this evil—he should have
been richer still if he had never possessed it.
No—it was that he had, in his simple, manly,
hearty way, truly loved his cousin—loved him,
looked up to him, trusted him implicitly. It was
that he had been, all along, the mere blind victim
of a gigantic fraud, deliberately planned,
mercilessly carried forward, callously consummated.
This was the blow. This was the wrong. This
was "the pity of it!"

He had to bear it, to fight through it, to think
it out for himself. He had, above all, to consider
what he should do next. That was the great
problem—what to do next.

For he was determined not to have recourse to
the law. He had made up his mind to that from
the first. The money might go—was gone,
probably. At all events, he would never foul the
Trefalden name in a public court, or drag the
man whom he had called by the sacred name of
"friend" before a public tribunal. At the same
time, however, might it not yet be possible to
recover some portion of the money? William
Trefalden believed him to be in Norway, and,
doubtless calculated on the three months which
Saxon had laid out for his northern trip. Was
it not, at all events, possible that the lawyer had
not yet taken flight?

The more Saxon thought about it, the more
he became convinced that his wisest course would
be to hasten back to London, confront his cousin,
and wrest from him whatever might yet be
recoverable of the stolen millions. There were
great improbabilities in the way; but even in the
face of these improbabilities, the effort was
worth making.

And then there was the Castletowers mortgage
. . . . but Saxon had already considered
how that difficulty might be met.

Poor young fellow! He lay awake all night
turning these things over in his mind; and in
the morning, as soon as Alexandria was awake
and stirring, he went down without even knocking
at Lord Castletowers' door as he passed by,
and out into the streets.

When he came back to breakfast, his face
wore a bright look of decision and purpose.

"I have been down to the landing-place,
Castletowers," he said, " looking after the Albula,
and making some inquiries of the people about
the quays. I think I ought to give up this
Mediterranean tour, and go back to England."

"I am sure of it," replied the Earl. " I was
about to suggest it to you myself, if you had not
proposed it."

"And 'if 'twere well 'twere done,' " said
Saxon, "' 'twere well 'twere done quickly.' "

"You will go by steamer, of course?"

"I would if I could; but the French mail left
yesterday, and the Overland packet will not be
due till next week; so the best and only thing
to be done is to stick to the yacht for the present.
The wind is direct in our favour; the Albula
will skim along like a gull; and by pushing
forward at once to Malta, we may catch one of the
Italian boats. At all events, we shall not be
standing still; and even to be moving is
something, when one is so intolerably restless."

"I am ready to start with you this very
moment," said the Earl.

"Thank you," replied Saxon, with a sigh.
"You must come back here, you know, when
you have got rid of me, and go on to Cairo and
the Pyramids, as we had intended before this
happened."

"Without you?"

"Why not? I shall, of course, leave the
yacht in your charge."

The Earl shook his head.

"No, no, Trefalden," he said. " The yacht
can be sent home in the care of the master; but
you and I must certainly not part company,
unless you feel you had rather be without me."

"That's impossible; but . . . ."

"But me no buts. Solitary travelling has no
charm for me. If you reject my society, I shall
simply go home to Castletowers as fast as I can."