smoking the best of cigars, one of which he offered
to me--for he was free as free; but I was necessitated to restore it,
for I couldn't take a gift from one as I was just a-going to nab. 'Thank
you kindly,' says I, 'but let us have no misunderstanding and no
obligation.' Poor fellow! poor fellow!"

No more was said about the case of Richard Yorke; but it was evidently a
standing topic with the chairman of the _George and Vulture_ club. A
yearning to behold and embrace that mother who had done and suffered so
much for his sake took possession of Richard's soul. His heart had been
steeled against her when he found harbored under her roof the objects of
his rage and loathing; but he felt now that that must have come to pass
with some intention of benefit to himself. The very truth, indeed,
flashed upon him that she entertained some plan of frustrating his
revenge against them, with the idea of protecting him from the
consequences that were likely to ensue from it; and he forgave her,
while he hated his foes the more. He would carry out his design to the
uttermost, but very cautiously, and with a prudence that he would
certainly not have used had his own safety been alone concerned; and
then, when he had avenged himself and her, he would disclose himself to
her. The statement he had just heard affected him deeply, but in
opposite ways. The justification of himself in no way moved him--he did
not need that; it was also far too late for his heart to be touched by
the expression of the old detective's good-will, though the time had
been when he would have thanked him for its utterance with honest tears;
but the revelation of his mother's toil and suffering in his behalf
reawakened all his dormant love for her, while it made his purpose
firmer than ever to be the Nemesis of her enemies and his own.

As he went to bed that night the clock struck twelve. It was just
four-and-twenty hours since he had left his victim in the bowels of
Wheal Danes. If a free pardon could have been offered to him for the
crime, and the mine been filled with gold for him to its mouth, he would
not have stretched out his hand to save him.

CHAPTER XLIV.

STILL HUMAN.

Mr. Balfour atoned for his previous indifference to the wares of the
news-boy by sending him next morning to the station for all the local
papers. In each, as he expected, there was a paragraph headed
_Mysterious Disappearance_, and as lengthened an account as professional