child or her mother. Ralph
Crewe and I loved each other as boys, but we had not met since our
school days, until we met in India. I was absorbed in the magnificent
promise of the mines. He became absorbed, too. The whole thing was so
huge and glittering that we half lost our heads. When we met we
scarcely spoke of anything else. I only knew that the child had been
sent to school somewhere. I do not even remember, now, HOW I knew it."

He was beginning to be excited. He always became excited when his
still weakened brain was stirred by memories of the catastrophes of the
past.

Mr. Carmichael watched him anxiously. It was necessary to ask some
questions, but they must be put quietly and with caution.

"But you had reason to think the school WAS in Paris?"

"Yes," was the answer, "because her mother was a Frenchwoman, and I had
heard that she wished her child to be educated in Paris. It seemed
only likely that she would be there."

"Yes," Mr. Carmichael said, "it seems more than probable."

The Indian gentleman leaned forward and struck the table with a long,
wasted hand.

"Carmichael," he said, "I MUST find her. If she is alive, she is
somewhere. If she is friendless and penniless, it is through my fault.
How is a man to get back his nerve with a thing like that on his mind?
This sudden change of luck at the mines has made realities of all our
most fantastic dreams, and poor Crewe's child may be begging in the
street!"

"No, no," said Carmichael. "Try to be calm. Console yourself with the
fact that when she is found you have a fortune to hand over to her."

"Why was I not man enough to stand my ground when things looked black?"
Carrisford groaned in petulant misery. "I believe I should have stood
my ground if I had not been responsible for other people's money as
well as my own. Poor Crewe had put into the scheme every penny that he
owned. He trusted me--he LOVED me. And he died thinking I had ruined
him--I--Tom Carrisford, who played cricket at Eton with him. What a
villain he must have thought me!"

"Don't reproach yourself so bitterly."

"I don't reproach myself because the speculation threatened to fail--I
reproach myself for losing my courage. I ran away like a swindler and
a thief, because I could not face my best friend and tell him I had
ruined him and his child."

The good-hearted father of the Large Family put his hand on his
shoulder comfortingly.

"You ran away because your b