more, but to cultivate all manner of public and
private virtues, and die at last in the odour of
popularity.

This delicious dream flashed through his mind
in less time than it occupies in the recital.
Hopes, regrets, anticipations, followed each
other so swiftly, that the smile with which his
reverie began had scarcely faded from his lips,
when he again took up his pen and proceeded to
note down in their order the particulars of his
wealth.

For months past he had been quietly and
cautiously disposing of this money, not selling out
the whole two millions at once, but taking it a
little at a time, placing some here, some there,
and transferring the greater portion of it, under
his assumed name of Forsyth, to foreign
securities.

One by one he now examined each packet of
notes and shares, each rouleau of gold, each bag
of precious stones; returned each to the cash-
box; and entered a memorandum of its nature
and value in the pages of his private account-
book. This account-book was a tiny little volume,
fitted with a patent lock, and small enough to go
into the waistcoat-pocket. Had he lost it, the
finder thereof would have profited little by its
contents, for the whole was written in a cunning
cypher of William Trefalden's own invention.

English bank-notes to the value of thousands
and tens of thousands of pounds; notes of the
Banque de France for tens of thousands and
hundreds of thousands of francs; American notes
for tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands
of dollars; Austrian notes, Russian notes,
Belgian and Dutch notes, notes issued by many
governments and of the highest denominations;
certificates of government stock in all the chief
capitals of Europe; shares in great Indian and
European railways; in steam navigation companies,
insurance companies, gas companies, docks,
mines, and banks in all parts of the civilised
world—in India, in Egypt, in Rio Janeiro, in
Ceylon, in Canada, in New Zealand, in the
Mauritius, in Jamaica, in Van Diemen's Land;
rouleaux of English sovereigns, of Napoleons, of
Friedrichs d'or; tiny bags of diamonds and rubies,
each a dowry for a princess—money, money,
money, in a thousand channels, in a thousand
forms—there it lay, palpable to the eye and the
touch; there it lay, and he entered it in his book,
packed it away in his cash-box, and told it over
to the uttermost farthing.

He alone knew the care, the anxious thought,
the wearisome precautions that those investments
had cost him. He alone knew how difficult it
had been to choose the safe and avoid the doubtful;
to be perpetually buying, first in this quarter,
then in that, without attracting undue
attention in the money market; to transact with
his own unaided hand all the work connected
with those purchases, and yet so to transact it
that not even his own clerks should suspect how
he was employed.

However, it was all over now—literally all
over, when, at half-past nine o'clock in the evening,
he at length turned the key upon the last
rouleau, and noted down the last sum in his
account-book.

Then he took a deed-box from the shelf above
the door, locked the cash-box inside, and put the
key in his pocket. That deed-box was inscribed
in white letters with the name of a former client
—a client long since dead, called "Mr.
Forsyth."

Having done this, he placed both in a large
carpet-bag lined throughout with strong leather,
and fitted with a curious and complicated padlock
—a bag which he had had made for this express
purpose weeks and weeks back. Last of all,
having strapped and locked the bag; locked the
empty safe; stirred the ashes beneath the grate,
to see if any unburned fragments yet remained;
cast a farewell glance round the room in which
so many hours of his life had been spent; put
out his lamp, and put on his hat, William Trefalden
took up the precious carpet-bag, and left the
place, as he believed, for ever.

But it was not for ever. It was not even for
ten minutes; for behold, when he had gone
down the gloomy staircase and unlatched the
house door at the end of the passage opening
upon the street, he found himself face to face
with a tall young man whose hand was at that
very moment uplifted to ring the housekeeper's
bell—a tall young man who stood between him
and the lamplight and barred the way, exclaiming:

"Not so fast, if you please, cousin William.
I must trouble you to turn back again, if you
please. I have something to say to you."

CHAPTER LXXX. FACE TO FACE.

OLIMPIA'S fortitude broke down utterly when
all was over. She neither sobbed, nor raved,
nor gave expression to her woe as women are
wont to do; but she seemed suddenly to loose
her hold upon life and become lost in measureless
despair. She neither spoke nor slept,
hungered nor thirsted; but remained, hour after
hour, pale, motionless, speechless as the one for
whom she mourned. From this apathy she
was by-and-by roused to the sharp agony of a
last, inevitable parting. This was when her
father's corpse was removed at Civita Vecchia,
and Lord Castletowers left them in order to
attend the poor remains to their last resting-
place in Rome; but this trial over, and her
disguise exchanged for mourning robes befitting
her sorrow and her sex, Miss Colonna relapsed
into her former lethargy, and passively accepted
such advice as those about her had to offer. The
yacht then went on to Nice, where, in accordance
with Saxon's suggestion, Olimpia was to
await the Earl's return.

It is unnecessary to say that Saxon cast anchor
in vain in the picturesque port of that pleasant
town. In vain he called upon the English consul;
in vain applied to the chief of police, to the
postal authorities, to every official personage