h enough but for this ugly knot, and it troubled Richard much,
though, as it happened, unnecessarily. Had the place of the calamity
been a gravel-pit at Highgate, it would have been guarded by
constabulary, and all things preserved as they were until after the
official investigation. But Wheal Danes, from having been a deserted
mine, had suddenly become the haunt of the curious and the morbid. There
was nothing more likely than that Solomon's ladder had been carried off,
and perhaps disposed of at a high price per foot as an interesting
relic. The presence of the half-extinguished torch that Richard had
flung away in the second level (and which should by rights have been
found in the third) was still more easily explained: there were a score
of such things now lying about the mine, which had been left there by
visitors. In short, an "active" coroner and an "intelligent" jury could
have come to no other conclusion than that of "accidental death;" and
they came to it accordingly.

Other comforters had arrived to the wounded man, before the receipt of
that good news, in the persons of Harry and her son and Agnes. There was
a reason why all three should be now warmly attracted toward him, which,
while it effectually worked his will in that way, gave him many a
twinge. They looked upon him, as did the rest of the world, as the man
who had lost his life (for his wound was by this time pronounced to be
fatal) to save his friend. He told them that it was not so, and they did
not believe him. He had not the heart to tell them how matters really
stood; but their praise pained him more than the agony of his wound, and
he peremptorily forbade the subject to be alluded to. This command was
not difficult to obey. Solomon's death, although the awful character of
it shocked them much, was, in reality, regretted neither by wife nor
son: such must be the case with every husband and father who has been a
domestic tyrant, no matter how dutifully wife and son may strive to
mourn: his loss was a release, and his memory a burden that they very
willingly put aside; and, in particular, his name was never mentioned
before Agnes without strong necessity.

Mrs. Coe, always at her best and wisest in matters wherein her son was
concerned, had never told this girl of the part which Robert Balfour had
taken against her. It would have wounded her self-love to have learned
that the influence of a comparative stranger had been used, and with
some effect