les, or rolled upon the floor alongside, I stood astonished.

"O Lord!" cried Mr. Rowley; "O Lordy, Lordy, Lord!" and he scrambled
after the fallen guineas. "O my, Mr. Anne! what a sight o' money! Why,
it's like a blessed story-book. It's like the Forty Thieves."

"Now, Rowley, let's be cool, let's be business-like," said I. "Riches
are deceitful, particularly when you haven't counted them; and the first
thing we have to do is to arrive at the amount of my--let me say modest
competency. If I'm not mistaken, I have enough here to keep you in gold
buttons all the rest of your life. You collect the gold, and I'll take
the paper."

Accordingly, down we sat together on the hearthrug, and for some time
there was no sound but the creasing of bills and the jingling of
guineas, broken occasionally by the exulting exclamations of Rowley. The
arithmetical operation on which we were embarked took long, and it might
have been tedious to others; not to me nor to my helper.

"Ten thousand pounds!" I announced at last.

"Ten thousand!" echoed Mr. Rowley.

And we gazed upon each other.

The greatness of this fortune took my breath away. With that sum in my
hands I need fear no enemies. People are arrested in nine cases out of
ten, not because the police are astute, but because they themselves run
short of money; and I had here before me in the despatch-box a
succession of devices and disguises that ensured my liberty. Not only
so; but, as I felt with a sudden and overpowering thrill, with ten
thousand pounds in my hand, I was become an eligible suitor. What
advances I had made in the past, as a private soldier in a military
prison, or a fugitive by the wayside, could only be qualified or,
indeed, excused as acts of desperation. And now, I might come in by the
front door; I might approach the dragon with a lawyer at my elbow, and
rich settlements to offer. The poor French prisoner, Champdivers, might
be in a perpetual danger of arrest; but the rich travelling Englishman,
St. Ives, in his post-chaise, with his despatch-box by his side, could
smile at fate and laugh at locksmiths. I repeated the proverb, exulting,
_Love laughs at locksmiths!_ In a moment, by the mere coming of this
money, my love had become possible--it had come near, it was under my
hand--and it may be by one of the curiosities of human nature, but it
burned that instant brighter.

"Rowley," said I, "your Viscount is a made man."

"Why, we both are, sir," said R