These last words were in reply to a knock at
the room door. A dirty servant-girl put her
tangled head into the room, and announced
"Mr. Deane" as waiting down-stairs. This
statement was apparently incorrect, for the girl
had scarcely made it before she disappeared, as
though pulled back, and a man stepped past
her, and made one stride into the middle of
the room, where he stood looking round him
with a suspicious leer.

He was a young man, apparently not more
than two or three-and-twenty, judging by his
figure and his light active movements; but
cunning and deceit had stamped such wrinkles
round his eyes, and graven such lines
round his mouth, as are seldom to be seen in
youth. His eyes, of a greenish-grey hue, were
small and deeply sunk in his head; his cheek-bones
were high, his cheeks fringed by a very
small scrap of whisker running into a
dirt-coloured tuft of hair growing underneath his chin.
His figure was tall and angular, his arms and
legs long and awkward, his hands and feet
large and ill shaped. He wore a large thick
overcoat with broad fur collar and cuffs, and
a hood (also fur-lined) hanging back on his
shoulders. With the exception of a very slight
strip of ribbon, he had no cravat underneath his
long limp turnover collar, but stuck into his
shirt-front was a large and handsome diamond pin.

"Why, what the 'tarnal," he commenced,
placing his arms a-kimbo and without removing
his hat—" what the 'tarnal, as they say down
west, is the meaning of this little game? I come
here pretty smart often, don't I? I come in
gen'lly right way, don't I? Why does that
gal go totin' up in front of me to-day to see if
you would see me, now?"

"Some mistake—eh?"

"Not a bit of it! Gal was all right, gal
was. What I want to know is, what was up?
Was you a practisin' any of your little
hankey-pankeys with the pasteboards? Was you a
bitin' in a double set of scrip of the new
company to do your own riggin' of the market? Or
was it a little bit of quiet con-nubiality with
the mar-darm here in which you didn't want to
be disturbed?"

Stewart Routh' s face had been growing darker
and darker as this speech proceeded, and at the
allusion to his wife his lips began to move; but
they were stopped by a warning pressure
underneath the table from Harriet's foot.

"You're a queer fellow, Deane!" he said,
in a subdued voice. "The fact is, we have a
new servant here, and she did not recognise
you as l'ami de la maison, and so stood on
the proprieties, I suppose."

"Oh, that's it—eh? I don't know about
the proprieties; but when the gal knows more
of me, she'll guess I'm one of 'em.

Nothing improper about me—no loafin' rowdy
ways such as some of your friends have. Pay
my way as I go, ask no favours, and don't
expect none." He gave his trousers-pockets a
ringing slap as he spoke, and looked round
with a sneering laugh.

"There, there! It's all right; now sit down,
and have a glass of wine, and tell us the news."

"No," he said, "thank'ee. I've been liquoring
up in the City, where I've been doin' a little
business—realising some of them Lake Eries and
Michigans as I told you on. Spanking investments
they were, and have turned up trumps."

"I hope you're in the hands of an honest
broker," said Routh. "I could introduce you
to one who——"

"Thank'ee, I have a great man to broke for
me, recommended to me from t'other side by his
cousin who leads Wall-street, New York City.
I have given him the writings, and am going to
see him on Tuesday, at two, when I shall trouser
the dollars to the tune of fifteen thousand and
odd, if markets hold up, I reckon."

"And you'll bring some of that to us in
Tokenhouse-yard," said Routh, eagerly. "You
recollect what I showed you, that I——"

"Oh yes!" said Deane, again with the sinister
smile. "You could talk a 'coon's hind leg
off, you could, Routh. But I shall just keep
my dollars in my desk for a few days.
Tokenhouse-yard can wait a little, can't it? just to
see how things eventuate, you know."

"As you please," said Routh. "One thing is
certain, Deane; you need no Mentor in your
business, whatever you may do in your
pleasures."

"Flatter myself, need none in neither," said
the young man, with a baleful grin. "Eh, look
here, now: talking of pleasures, come and dine
with me on Friday at Barton's, at five. I've
asked Dallas, and we'll have a night of it.
Tuesday, the 17th, mind. Sorry to take your
husband away, Mrs. R., but I'll make up for it
some day. Perhaps you'll come and dine with
me some day, Mrs. R., without R.?"

"Not I, Mr. Deane," said Harriet, with a
laugh. "You're by far too dangerous a man."

Mr. Deane was gone; and again Stewart
Routh sat over the table, scribbling figures on
his blotting-pad.

"What are you doing, Stewart?"

"Five dollars to the pound—fifteen thousand,"
he said, " three thousand pounds! When
did he say he would draw it?"

"On Tuesday, the—the day you dine with
him."

"The day I dine with him! Keep it in his
desk, he said, for a few days! He has grown
very shy about Tokenhouse-yard. He hasn't
been there for a week. The day I dine with
him!" He had dropped his pen, and was slowly
passing his hand over his chin.

"Stewart," said Harriet, going behind him
and putting her arm round his neck—"Stewart,
I know what thought you're busy with,
but——"

"Do you, Harry?" said he, disengaging
himself, but not unkindly—"do you? Then keep
it to yourself, my girl, and get to bed. We
must have that, Harry, in one way or another;
we must have it."

She took up a candle, pressed her lips to his