from whom he conceived it possible to procure
the information of which he was in search.
The name of Rivière had not been heard in the
place.

He examined the visitors' list for the last
three months, but found no record of their
arrival. He inquired at the bank with the same
unsatisfactory result. It was the slack season,
too, at Nice—the season when visitors are few,
and every stranger is known by name and sight—
and yet no ladies answering in any way to his
description had been seen there that summer.

Having spent the best part of a day in the
prosecution of this hopeless quest, Saxon was
forced at last to conclude that Mrs. and Miss
Rivière were not merely undiscoverable in Nice,
but that they had never been to Nice at all.

And now, he asked himself, what was to be
done? To leave Miss Colonna among strangers
was impossible. To remain with her at Nice
was, for himself, equally impossible. However,
Olimpia cut the knot of this difficulty by
announcing her desire to be taken at once to
England. She had friends in London, dear and
tried friends, who had laboured with her in the
Italian cause for many years, among whom she
would now find tender sympathy. She expressed
no wish to go to Castletowers, as she would
surely have done a few months before; and
Saxon, knowing the cause of her silence, dared
not propose it to her.

So, having written a hasty line to Lord
Castletowers, informing him of their change
of plans, Saxon despatched his yacht to Portsmouth,
bade farewell to Montecuculi, who was
now hastening back to south Italy, and
conducted Miss Colonna back through France as
fast as the fastest trains could take them. On
the fifteenth of September, at four o'clock in the
afternoon, they landed at Dover. By eight
o'clock that same evening, the young man had
conducted the lady to the house of a friend at
Chiswick, and, having despatched a hasty dinner
at his club, posted down to the City—not so
much with any expectation of finding his cousin
at the office, as in the hope of learning something
of his whereabouts. What he actually
anticipated was to hear that the lawyer had
disappeared long since, and was gone no one knew
whither.

He was therefore almost as much startled as
the lawyer himself, when the door opened, as it
were, under his hand, and he found himself
standing face to face with William Trefalden.

"This is indeed a surprise, Saxon," said Mr.
Trefalden, as they withdrew into the passage.

"I fear, not an agreeable one, cousin
William," replied the young man, sternly.

But the lawyer had already surveyed his
position, and chosen his line of defence. If, for a
moment, his heart failed within him, he betrayed
no sign of confusion. Quick to think, prompt to
act, keenly sensible that his one hope lay in his
own desperate wits, he became at once master
of the situation.

"Nay," he replied, quite easily and pleasantly,
"how should it be other than agreeable to
wecome you back after three months' absence? I
scarcely expected, however, to see you quite so
soon. Why did you not write to tell me you
were coming?"

But to this question, Saxon, following his
cousin up the staircase, made no reply.

Mr. Trefalden unlocked his office door, lit his
office lamp, and led the way into his private
room.

"And now, Saxon," said he, "sit down, and
tell me all about Norway."

But Saxon folded his arms, and remained
standing.

"I have nothing to tell you about Norway,"
he replied. "I have not been to Norway."

"Not been to Norway? Where then have
you been, my dear fellow?"

"To Italy—to the East."

He looked hard at his cousin's face as he said
this; but Mr. Trefalden only elevated his
eyebrows the very least in the world, seated himself
carelessly in his accustomed chair, and replied:

"A change of programme, indeed! What
caused you to give up the North?"

"Chance. Perhaps fate."

The lawyer smiled.

"My dear Saxon," he said, "you have grown
quite oracular in your style of conversation. But
why do you not sit down?"

"Because you and I are friends no longer,"
replied the young man; "because you have
betrayed the trust I placed in you, and the friendship
I gave you; because you have wronged me,
lied to me, robbed me; because you are a felon,
and I am an honest man!"

Mr. Trefalden turned livid with rage, and
grasped the arm of his chair so fiercely that the
veins swelled upon his hand, and the knuckles
stood out white beneath the skin.

"Have you reflected, Saxon Trefalden," he
said, in a deep, suppressed voice, "that this is
such language as no one man can forgive from
another?"

"Forgive!" echoed Saxon, indignantly. "Do
you talk to me of forgiveness? Do you understand
that I know all—all? All your treachery,
all your baseness! I know that your Overland
Company is a lie. I know there are neither
directors nor shares, engineers nor works. I know
that the whole scheme was simply a gigantic
fraud devised by yourself for your own iniquitous
ends!"

The lawyer bit his lips, and his eye glittered
dangerously; but he kept his passion down, and
replied, with forced calmness:

"You know, I presume, that the New Overland
Route scheme was a bubble. I could have
told you that. I could also have told you that
I have not the honour to be the contriver of
that bubble. On the contrary, I am one of its
victims."

Saxon looked at him with bitter incredulity;
but he went on: