Diamonds worth a quarter of a million! And yet already they were beginning to hang like a millstone round Mr. Paxton's neck. The relief which he felt at having got rid of them from his actual person proved to be but temporary. All day they haunted him. Having done the one thing which he had come to town to do, he found himself unoccupied. He avoided the neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange, and of his usual haunts, for reasons. Eries were still declining. The difference against him had assumed a portentous magnitude. Possibly, confiding brokers were seeking for him high and low, anxious for security which would protect them against the necessity of having to make good his losses. No, just then the City was not for him. Discretion, of a sort, suggested his confining himself to the West-end of town.

Unfortunately, in this case, the West-end meant loitering about bars and similar stimulating places. He drank not only to kill time but also to drown his thoughts, and the more he tried to drown them, the more they floated on the surface.

What a fool he had been--what an egregious fool! How he had exchanged his talents for nothing, and for less than nothing. How he had thrown away his prospects, his opportunities, his whole life, his all! And now, by way of a climax, he had been guilty of a greater folly than any which had gone before. He had sold more than his birthright for less--much less--than a mess of pottage. He had lost his soul for the privilege of being able to hang a millstone round his neck--cast honour to the winds for the sake of encumbering himself with a burden which would crush him lower and lower, until it laid him level with the dust.

Wherever he went, the story of the robbery met his eyes. The latest news of it was announced on the placards of the evening papers. Newsboys bawled it in his ears. He had only to listen to what was being said by the other frequenters of the bars against which he lounged to learn that it was the topic of conversation on every tongue. All England, all Europe, indeed, one might say that the whole of the civilised world was on tiptoe to catch the man who had done this thing. As John Ireland had said, he might as soon think of being able to sell the diamonds as of being able to sell the Koh-i-Nor. Every one who knew anything at all of precious stones was on the look-out for them, from pole to pole. During his lifetime he would not even venture to attempt their disposal, any attempt of the kind would inevitably involve his being instantaneously branded as a felon.

Last night, when he left London, he had had something over two hundred pounds in his pockets. Except debts, and certain worthless securities, for which no one would give him a shilling, it was all he had left in the world. It was not a large sum, but it was sufficient to take him to the other side of the globe, and to keep him there until he had had time to turn himself round, and to find some means of earning for himself his daily bread. He had proposed to go on to Southampton this morning, thence straight across the seas. Now what was it he proposed to do? Every day that he remained in England meant making further inroads into his slender capital. At the rate at which he was living, it would rapidly dwindle all away. Then how did he intend to replenish it? By selling the duchess's diamonds? Nonsense! He told himself, with bitter frankness, that such an idea was absolute nonsense; that such a prospect was as shadowy as, and much more dangerous than, the proverbial mirage of the desert.

He returned by an afternoon train to Brighton, in about as black a mood as he could be. He sat in a corner of a crowded compartment--for some reason he rather shirked travelling alone--communing with the demons of despair who seemed to be the tenants of his brain; fighting with his own particular wild beasts. Arrived at Brighton without adventure, he drove straight to Makell's Hotel.

As he advanced into the hall, the manager came towards him out of the office.

"Good evening, Mr. Paxton. Did you authorise any one to come and fetch away your bag?"

"No. Why?"

"Some fellow came and said that you had sent him for your Gladstone bag."

"I did nothing of the kind. Did you give it him?"

The manager smiled.

"Hardly. You had confided it to my safe keeping, and I was scarcely likely to hand it to a stranger who was unable to present a more sufficient authority than he appeared to have. We make it a rule that articles entrusted to our charge are returned to the owners only, on personal application."

"What sort of a man was he to look at?"

"Oh, a shabby-looking chap, very much down at heel indeed, middle-aged; the sort of man whom you would expect would run messages."

"Tell me, as exactly as you can, what it was he said."

"He said that Mr. Paxton had sent him for his Gladstone bag. I asked him where you were. He said you were at Medina Villas, and you wanted your bag. You had given him a shilling to come for it, and you were to give him another shilling when he took it back. I told him our rule referring to property deposited with us by guests, and he made off."

Medina Villas? Miss Strong resided in Medina Villas, and Miss Wentworth; with which fact Mr. Lawrence was possibly acquainted. Once more in this latest dash for the bag Mr. Paxton seemed to trace that gentleman's fine Roman hand. He thanked the manager for the care which he had taken of his interests.

"I'm glad that you sent the scamp empty away, but, between you and me, the loss wouldn't have been a very serious one if you had given him what he wanted. I took all that the bag contained of value up with me to town, and left it there."

The manager looked at him, as Mr. Paxton felt, a trifle scrutinisingly, as if he could not altogether make him out.

"There seems to be a sort of dead set made at you. First, the attempted burglary last night--which is a kind of thing which has never before been known in the whole history of the hotel--and now this impudent rascal trying to make out that you had authorised him to receive your Gladstone bag. One might almost think that you were carrying something about with you which was of unique importance, and that the fact of your doing so had somehow become known to a considerable proportion of our criminal population."

Mr. Paxton laughed. He had the bag carried upstairs, telling himself as he went that it was already more than time that his sojourn at Makell's Hotel should be brought to a conclusion.

He ate a solitary dinner, lingering over it, though he had but a scanty appetite, as long as he could, in order to while away the time until the hour came for meeting Daisy. Towards the end of the meal, sick to death of his own thoughts, for sheer want of something else to do, he took up an evening paper, which he had brought into the room with him, and which was lying on a chair at his side, and began to glance at it. As he idly skimmed its columns, all at once a paragraph in the City article caught his eye. He read the words with a feeling of surprise; then, with increasing amazement, he read them again.

"The boom in the shares of the Trumpit Gold Mine continues. On the strength of a report that the reef which has been struck is of importance, the demand for them, even at present prices, exceeded the supply. When our report left, buyers were offering £10--the highest price of the day."

After subjecting the paragraph to a second reading, Mr. Paxton put the paper down upon his knees, and gasped for breath. It was a mistake--a canard--quite incredible. Trumpits selling at £10--it could not be! He would have been glad, quite lately, to have sold his for 10d each; only he was conscious that even at that price he would have found no buyer. £10 indeed! It was a price of which, at one time, he had dreamed--but it had remained a dream.

He read the paragraph again. So far as the paper was concerned, there seemed to be no doubt about it--there it was in black and white. The paper was one of the highest standing, of unquestionable authority, not given to practical jokes--especially in the direction of quotations in its City article. Could the thing be true? He felt that something was tingling all over his body. On a sudden, his pulses had begun to beat like sledge-hammers. He rose from his seat, just as the waiter was placing still another plate in front of him, and, to the obvious surprise of that well-trained functionary, he marched away without a word. He made for the smoking-room. He knew that he should find the papers there. And he found them, morning and evening papers--even some of the papers of the day before--as many as he wished. He ransacked them all. Each, with one accord, told the same tale.

The thing might be incredible, but it was true!

While he was gambling in Eries, losing all, and more than all, that he had; while he was gambling in stolen jewels, losing all that was left of his honour too, a movement had been taking place in the market which was making his fortune for him all the time, and he had not noticed it. The thing seemed to him to be almost miraculous. And certainly it was not the least of the miracles which lately had come his way.

Some two years before a friend had put him on--as friends do put us on--to a real good thing--the Trumpit Gold Mine. The friend professed to have special private information about this mine, and Mr. Paxton believed that he had. He still believed that he thought he had. Mr. Paxton was not a greenhorn, but he was a gambler, which now and then is about as bad. He looked at the thing all round--in the light of his friend's special information!--as far as he could, and as time would permit, and it seemed to him to be good enough for a plunge. The shares just then were at a discount--a considerable discount. From one point of view it was the time to buy them--and he did. He got together pretty well every pound he could lay his hands on, and bought ten thousand--bought them out and out, to hold--and went straight off and told Miss Strong he had made his fortune. It was only the mistake of a word--what he ought to have told her was that he had lost it. The certainly expected find of yellow ore did not come off, nor did the looked-for rise in the shares come off either. They continued at a discount, and went still lower. Purchasers could not be discovered at any price.

It was a bitter blow. Almost, if not quite, as bitter a blow to Miss Strong as to himself. Indeed, Mr. Paxton had felt ever since as if Miss Strong had never entirely forgiven him for having made such a fool of her. He might--he could not help fancying that some such line of reasoning had occupied her attention more than once--before telling her of the beautiful chickens which were shortly about to be hatched, at least have waited till the eggs were laid.

He had been too much engaged in other matters to pay attention to quotations for shares, which had long gone unquoted, and which he had, these many days, regarded as a loss past praying for. It appeared that rumours had come of gold in paying quantities having been found; that the rumours had gathered strength; that, in consequence, the shares had risen, until, on a sudden, the market was in a frenzy--as occasionally the market is apt to be--and ten pounds a-piece was being offered. Ten thousand at ten pounds a-piece--why, it was a hundred thousand pounds! A fortune in itself!

By the time Mr. Paxton had attained to something like an adequate idea of the situation, he was half beside himself with excitement. He looked at his watch--it was time for meeting Daisy. He hurried into the hall, crammed on his hat, and strode into the street.

Scarcely had he taken a dozen steps, when some one struck him a violent blow from behind. As he turned to face his assailant, an arm was thrust round his neck, and what felt like a damp cloth was forced against his mouth. He was borne off his feet, and, in spite of his struggles, was conveyed with surprising quickness into a cab which was drawn up against the kerb.