There was a gathering of miners near the pit-head that morning. It was pay day. The rule was that the miners on the morning shift should pass through the pay-office before going down the shaft at eight o'clock; and that those on the night shift should pass through on their way home a few minutes afterward. When the morning men passed through the office they had found the pay-door shut, and a notice posted over it, saying, "All wages due at eight o'clock to-day will be paid at the same hour to-morrow."

Presently the men on the night shift came up in the cages, and after a brief explanation both gangs, with the banksmen and all top-ground hands, except the engine-man, trooped away to a place suitable for a conference. There was a worked-out open cutting a hundred yards away. It was a vast cleft dug into the side of the mountain, square on its base, vertical in its three gray walls, and sweeping up to a dizzy height, over which the brant sides of the green fell rose sheer into the sky. It was to this natural theatre that the two hundred miners made their way in groups of threes and fours, their lamps and cans in their hands, their red-stained clothes glistening in the morning sun.

It was decided to send a deputation to the master, asking that the order might be revoked and payment made as usual. The body of the men remained in the clearing, conversing in knots, while two miners, buirdly fellows, rather gruffer of tongue than the rest, went to the office to act as spokesmen.

The deputation were approaching the pit-head when the engine-man shouted that he had just heard the master's knock from below, and in another moment Hugh Ritson, in flannels and fustian, stepped out of the cage.

He heard the request, and at once offered to go to the men and give his answer. The miners made way for him respectfully, and then closed about him when he spoke.

"Men," he said, with a touch of his old resolution, "let me tell you frankly, as between man and man, that I can not pay you this morning, because I haven't got the money. I tried to get it, and failed. This afternoon I shall receive much more than is due to you, and to-morrow you shall be promptly paid."

The miners twisted about and compared notes in subdued voices.

"That's no'but fair," said one.

"He cannut say na fairer," said another.

But there were some who were not so easily appeased; and one of these crushed his way through the crowd, and said:

"Mr. Ritson, we're not same as the bettermer folk, as can get credit for owt 'at they want. We ax six days' pay because we have to do six days' payin' wi' it. And if we're back a day in our pay we're a day back in our payin'; and that means clemmin' a laal bit—and the wife and barns forby."

There were murmurs of approval from the crowd, and then another malcontent added:

"Times has changed to a gay tune sin' we could put by for a rainy day. It's hand to mouth now, on'y the mouth's allus ready and the hand's not."

"It's na much as we ha' gotten to put away these times," said the first speaker. "Not same as the days when a pitman's wife, 'at I ken on, flung a five-pound note in his face and axed him what he thowt she were to mak' o' that."

"Nay, nay," responded the others in a chorus.

"Men, I'm not charging you with past extravagance," said Hugh Ritson; "and it's not my fault if the pit hasn't done as well for all of us as I had hoped."

He was moving away, when the crowd closed about him again.

"Mates," shouted one of the miners, "there's another word as some on us wad like to say to the master, and that's about the timber."

"What is it?" asked Hugh Ritson, facing about.

"There be some on us 'at think the pit's none ower safe down the bottom working, where the seam of sand runs cross-ways. We're auld miners, maistly, and we thowt maybe ye wadna tak' it wrang if we telt ye 'at it wants a vast mair forks and upreets."

"Thank you, my lads, I'll see what I can do," said Hugh Ritson; and then added in a lower tone: "But I've put a forest of timber underground already, and where this burying of money is to end God alone knows."

He turned away this time and moved off, halting more noticeably than usual on his infirm foot.

He returned to his office near the pit-bank, and found Mr. Bonnithorne awaiting him.

"The day is young, but I'm no sluggard, you know," said the lawyer. "I thought we might want a word or two before the meeting at the Ghyll."

Hugh Ritson did not notice the explanation. He looked anxious and disturbed. While stripping off his pit flannels, and putting on his ordinary clothes, he told Mr. Bonnithorne what had just occurred, and then added:

"If anything had been necessary to prove that this morning's bad business is inevitable, I should have found it in this encounter with the men."

"It comes as a fillip to your already blunted purpose," said the lawyer with a curious smile. "Odd, isn't it?"

"Blunted!" said Hugh Ritson, and there was a perceptible elevation of the eyebrows.

Presently he drew a long breath, and said with an air of relief:

"Ah, well, if she suffers who has suffered enough already, he, at least, will be out of the way forever."

Bonnithorne shifted slightly on his seat.

"You think so?" he asked.

Something cynical in the tone caught Hugh Ritson's ear.

"It was a bad change, wasn't it?" added the lawyer; "this one is likely to be a deal more troublesome."

Hugh Ritson went on with his dressing in silence.

"You see, by the interchange your positions were reversed," continued the lawyer.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, the other was in your hands, while you are in the hands of this one."

Hugh Ritson's foot fell heavily at that instant, but he merely said, with suppressed quietness:

"There was this one's crime."

"Was—precisely," said Mr. Bonnithorne.

Hugh Ritson looked up with a look of inquiry.

"When you gave the crime to the other, this one became a free man," the lawyer explained.

There was a silence.

"What does it all come to?" said Hugh Ritson, sullenly.

"That your hold of Paul Drayton is gone forever."

"How so?"

"Because you can never incriminate him without first incriminating yourself," said the lawyer.

"Who talks of incrimination?" said Hugh Ritson, testily. "To-day, this man is to take upon himself the name of Paul Lowther—his true name, though he doesn't know it, blockhead as he is. Therefore, I ask again: What does it all come to?"

Mr. Bonnithorne shifted uneasily.

"Nothing," he said, meekly, but the curious smile still played about his downcast face.

Then there was silence again.

"Do you know that Mercy Fisher is likely to regain her sight?" said Hugh.

"You don't say so? Dear me, dear me!" said the lawyer, sincere at last. "In all the annals of jurisprudence there is no such extraordinary case of identity being conclusively provable by one witness only, and of that witness becoming blind. Odd, isn't it?"

Hugh Ritson smiled coldly.

"Odd? Say providential," he answered. "I believe that's what you church folk call it when the Almighty averts a disaster that is made imminent by your own short-sightedness."

"A disaster, indeed, if her sight ceases to be so providentially short," said the lawyer.

"Get the man out of the way, and the woman is all right," said Hugh. He picked a letter out of a drawer, and handed it to Mr. Bonnithorne. "You will remember that the other was to have shipped to Australia."

Mr. Bonnithorne bowed his head.

"This letter is from the man for whom he intended to go out—an old friend of my father. Answer it, Bonnithorne."

"In what terms?" asked the lawyer.

"Say that a long illness prevented, but that Paul Ritson is now prepared to fulfill his engagement."

"And what then?"

"What then?" Hugh Ritson echoed. "Why, what do you think?"

"Send him?" with a motion of the thumb over the shoulder.

"Of course," said Hugh.

Again the cynical tone caught Hugh Ritson's ear, and he glanced up quickly, but made no remark. He was now dressed.

"I am ready," and on reaching the door and taking a last look round the room, he added: "I'll have the best of this furniture removed to the Ghyll to-morrow. The house has been unbearable of late, and I've been forced to spend most of my time down here."

"Then you don't intend to give him much grace?" asked Bonnithorne.

"Not an hour."

The lawyer bent his forehead very low at that moment.