e distrusted the wandering blood within him, possibly he did
not lose sight of the fact that where he had found the great diamonds he
had certainly left behind many more, to be found or not at some future
time. So he rented the house and park, and extensive shooting and
fishing rights. No more pinching and scraping now. To the children this
change was, as Fay had said, "heavenly."

"How do people get rich in Africa, father?" said the latter, as they
turned homeward.

"In various ways. They find gold mines with no gold in them, and then
sell shares in them to a pack of idiots for a great deal of money. Or
they perhaps find a few diamonds themselves. Or they trade in all sorts
of things--ivory, and so forth."

He had stopped to light a pipe; Fay, intently watching his face through
the clouds of smoke he was puffing forth, detected a lurking quizzical
expression in his eyes, which roused her scepticism.

"I never quite know whether you are serious or not, father," she said.
"But you never tell us any stories about Africa."

"I've got out of practice for story-telling, little one."

"But Colonel Hewett tells us plenty,"--naming a neighbour,--"and yet he
hasn't been so much in Africa as you have."

"Ah, he'll never get out of practice in that line," returned Laurence,
with the same quizzical laugh.

"What a lot of adventures you must have had, father," went on Fay
wistfully; for this was a sore subject both with herself and her
brothers. They had expected tale upon tale of hair-raising peril--of
lions and crocodiles and snakes and fighting Zulus. But woeful
disappointment awaited. The last topic the returned wanderer seemed to
care to talk upon was that of his wanderings.

Before they regained the house they were joined by the two boys, happy
and healthy with their recent gallop, and full of the trout they were
going to catch on the morrow under the tuition of the keeper. Laurence,
dismissing them for a while, entered quietly by a back way. The post had
come in, and with it an African mail letter. This he carried into his
private sanctum. It was from Holmes.

"I hope the fellow isn't going to make trouble," he said to himself with
a slight clouding of the brow. "He's idiot enough to turn
pious--repentant, I suppose, they would call it--and give the whole
thing away. 'Nothing but a curse can come of it,--the curse of blood,'
the young fool said, or words to that effect. I wonder what sort of a
'curse' it is that p