"Nothing fresh, my dear," replied Mark: "Hendon and I are going to chat over matters. We shall be up again soon."

"But is the news very bad?" said Rich.

"No: on the whole good," replied Mark; and he and Hendon went down-stairs, and were going into the dining-room, but the gas was lit in the surgery, and they went there, to find Bob going over the bottles, and, after a careful polish, putting them back.

"Be off for a bit, my boy," said Hendon; "or--no; go on with your work."

He took a match from a box on a shelf, and lit the consulting-room lamp.

"Here," he said, "room's chilly; we may as well have a pipe over it."

Mark nodded, and they smoked for a few minutes in silence.

"Why did you say that was good news?" said Hendon at last.

"Because the enemy shows his hand."

"Shows his hand? How?"

"If he had any claim upon your father, he would have attacked him first.

He has no claim. It was an empty boast."

"So much the better," cried Hendon. "Well, that settles it. I shall go off with you."

Mark smoked in silence.

"If you'll have me. But I say, old fellow, do you quite give up the diamonds?"

"Quite."

"You said you had been to the police again, yesterday."

"Yes, and they say they think they can lay their hands upon the men when they try to sell."

"Well, then, there is hope."

"Not a bit. They are cooling down. I don't think they have much faith in my story; and, besides, the matter is growing stale. They have a dozen more things on the way. Hendon, my lad, you love my sister?"

"On my--"

"That will do. I believe it; but neither you nor I can marry for years to come. You shall go with me, and we will come back well enough off to make those two our wives."

"But Poynter's debt? He'll have me arrested before I can leave the country."

"His debt shall be paid."

"Paid?"

"Not in full, but as much as is honestly due to him. I shall set a sensible solicitor to work to make a compromise."

"But the money? No, no; he will not give up. This is putting on the screw so as to move my sister."

"Whom he will not move," said Mark, smiling with content. "I suppose you are not likely to take up your father's invention?"

"Good gracious, no! Millington, our big swell, told me, when I mentioned it, that it was a craze, and that it was contrary to nature.

You can't arrest ordinary decay."

"No, of course not; life must go on till it reaches its highest pitch, and then decline."

"Of course."

"Well, look here, Hendon, Janet and I have a little money between us in Consols, and, as we are going to make a fresh start together, we'll do so clearly, and your debt shall be paid."

"What, with Janet's money? Hang it, no!" cried Hendon fiercely; "I'm not such a cad as that."

"You are going to be my brother," said Mark, smiling as he slapped him on the shoulder, "my younger brother, and you'll do exactly what I bid you."

"Yes, but--"

"That will do. I see my way clearly now, so let's go up-stairs and have a chat with the girls."

Hendon put down his pipe very slowly, and glanced up at a shelf, upon which some of the apparatus connected with his father's dreams was standing; but it offered him no solution of his difficulties, and he followed Mark Heath into the surgery just as Janet and Rich, who were unable longer to bear the suspense, came down to press for an explanation.

"Here, I say," saluted the party, from Bob, "who's been a-meddlin' with these here preparations?"

"What preparations?" said Hendon sharply.

"These here," cried Bob, who had just taken down a large glass jar to dust. "The doctor will be in a way. He don't like no one to meddle with them."

The jar was labelled, like the row from which it had been taken, with a gummed-on slip of letter paper, the contents being written in the doctor's own bold hand, the ink now yellow with age, and the gummed-on label beginning to peel off.

"Put the horrible thing away!" cried Hendon angrily.

"But some 'un's been a-stuffing something else in here as don't belong,"

cried the boy. "I knows 'em all by heart. Look here!"

He thrust his hand into the glass jar, after removing the great stopper.

"What are you doing, boy?" cried Hendon, stepping forward to arrest the lad's action, as he drew out, all dripping with the spirit, a disgusting-looking swollen object, evidently a portion of the digestive viscera of a calf or sheep; but before he could reach him, Mark uttered a wild cry, thrust him aside; and, as he snatched the hideous-looking object from Bob's hand, the glass jar fell upon the surgery floor, was smashed to atoms, and a strong odour of methylated spirit filled the place.

"You've done it now!" cried the boy piteously; and then he stared as Mark dragged from his pocket a knife, and cut the string of what, in place of an anatomical preparation, was a soaked and swollen wash-leather bag.

"Look, Rich, look!" cried Mark, dropping the knife, his hands trembling with excitement, and his voice so husky and changed that it was hardly recognisable.

As he spoke, he thrust Rich back upon the settee, and, with one quick motion, poured a couple of handfuls of rough diamonds into her lap.

"Mark!" she cried, as he sank upon his knees before her, and clasped her hands; while, in his excitement, Hendon caught Janet in his arms, from which she might have extricated herself a little more quickly than she did.

"Now just look at that!" said Bob, picking up the bag, which had fallen upon the floor. "Why, it's just like one o' them things as the doctor's got saved up. I say," he continued excitedly, "lookye here, sir, there's another one inside."