ut that, Gordon."

"But I do, and I won't hear any assertion to the contrary. I offered
you the shares for a certain price, and you rejected them."

"I did not do that."

"You did do that,--exactly. Then there came up in my mind a feeling
that I might probably wish to change my purpose."

"And I am to suffer for that."

"Not in the least. I then told you that you should still have the
shares for the price named. But I did not offer them to any one else.
So I came home,--and you chose to come with me. But before I started,
and again after, I told you that the offer did not hold good, and
that I should not make up my mind as to selling till after I got to
England."

"We understood that you meant to be married."

"I never said so. I never said a word about marriage. I am now going
back, and mean to manage the mine myself."

"Without asking me?"

"Yes; I shall ask you. But I have two-thirds. I will give you for
your share 10 per cent more than the price you offered me for each of
my shares. If you do not like that, you need not accept the offer;
but I don't mean to have any more words about it."

Mr Fitzwalker Tookey's face became longer and longer, and he did in
truth feel himself to be much aggrieved within his very soul. There
were still two lines of conduct open to him. He might move the stern
man by a recapitulation of the sorrow of his circumstances, or he
might burst out into passionate wrath, and lay all his ruin to his
partner's doing. He might still hope that in this latter way he could
rouse all Kimberley against Gordon, and thus creep back into some
vestige of property under the shadow of Gordon's iniquities. He would
try both. He would first endeavour to move the stern man to pity. "I
don't think you can imagine the condition in which you are about to
place me."

"I can't admit that I am placing you anywhere."

"I'll just explain. Of course I know that I can tell you everything
in strictest confidence."

"I don't know it at all."

"Oh yes; I can. You remember the story of my poor wife?"

"Yes; I remember."

"She's in London now."

"What! She got back from the Portuguese settlement?"

"Yes. She did not stay there long. I don't suppose that the
Portuguese are very nice people."

"Perhaps not."

"At any rate they don't have much money among them."

"Not after the lavish expenditure of the diamond-fields," suggested
Gordon.

"Just so. Poor Matilda had been accustomed to all that money