larmed his mentor. At times he was gay, as he always had been, and
in the midst of his gaiety he would turn away with a gloomy face and go
to his own room.

To press the question would be to precipitate a catastrophe. Dormer
Colville decided to go on as if nothing had happened. It is a compromise
with the inconveniences of untruth to which we must all resort at some
crisis or another in life.

"I will not be long," he assured Barebone, with a gay laugh. The
prospect of handling one hundred thousand francs in notes was perhaps
exhilarating; though the actual possession of great wealth would seem to
be of the contrary tendency. There is a profound melancholy peculiar to
the face of the millionaire. "I shall not be long; for he is a man of
his word, and the money will be ready."

John Turner was awaiting his visitor, and gave a large soft hand inertly
into Colville's warm grasp.

"I always wish I saw more of you," said the new-comer.

"Is there not enough of me already?" inquired the banker, pointing to
the vacant chair, upon which fell the full light of the double window. A
smaller window opposite to it afforded a view of the court-yard. And it
was at this smaller window that Colville glanced as he sat down, with a
pause indicative of reluctance.

Turner saw the glance and noted the reluctance. He concluded, perhaps,
in the slow, sure mind that worked behind his little peeping eyes, that
Loo Barebone was in the carriage in the court-yard, and that Colville
was anxious to return to him as soon as possible.

"It is very kind of you to say that, I am sure," pursued Turner, rousing
himself to be pleasant and conversational. "But, although the loss is
mine, my dear Colville, the fault is mostly yours. You always know
where to find me when you want my society. I am anchored in this chair,
whereas one never knows where one has a butterfly like yourself."

"A butterfly that is getting a bit heavy on the wing," answered
Colville, with his wan and sympathetic smile. He sat forward in the
chair in an attitude antipathetic to digression from the subject in
hand.

"I do not see any evidence of that. One hears of you here and there in
France. I suppose, for instance, you know more than any man in Paris
at the present moment of the--" he paused and suppressed a yawn,
"the--er--vintage. Anything in it--eh?"

"So far as I could judge, the rains came too late; but I shall be glad
to tell you all about it another time. This morn