ve got his job!

"Chap called for mail. Goodbye.

"Ever your affectionate

"FRED.

"Trent is a brick."

Ernestine read the letter slowly, line by line, word by word. To tell
the truth it was absorbingly interesting to her. Already there had
come rumours of the daring and blunt, resistless force with which
this new-made millionaire had confronted a gigantic task. His terse
communications had found their way into the Press, and in them and in
the boy's letter she seemed to discover something Caesaric. That night
it was more than usually difficult for her to settle down to her own
work. She read her nephew's letter more than once and continually
she found her thoughts slipping away--traveling across the ocean to
a tropical strip of country, where a heterogeneous crowd of men were
toiling and digging under a blazing sun. And, continually too, she
seemed to see a man's face looking steadily over the sea to her, as he
stood upright for a moment and rested from his toil. She was very fond
of the boy--but the face was not his!

CHAPTER XXXI

A special train from Southampton had just steamed into Waterloo with the
passengers from the Royal Mail steamer Ophir. Little groups of sunburnt
men were greeting old friends upon the platform, surrounded by piles of
luggage, canvas trunks and steamer chairs. The demand for hansoms was
brisk, cab after cab heavily loaded was rolling out of the yard. There
were grizzled men and men of fair complexion, men in white helmets and
puggarees, and men in silk hats. All sorts were represented there, from
the successful diamond digger who was spasmodically embracing a lady in
black jet of distinctly Jewish proclivities, to a sporting lord who
had been killing lions. For a few minutes the platforms were given over
altogether to a sort of pleasurable confusion, a vivid scene, full
of colour and human interest. Then the people thinned away, and, very
nearly last of all, a wizened-looking, grey-headed man, carrying a black
bag and a parcel, left the platform with hesitating footsteps and turned
towards the bridge. He was followed almost immediately by Hiram Da
Souza, who, curiously enough, seemed to have been on the platform when
the train came in and to have been much interested in this shabby,
lonely old man, who carried himself like a waif stranded in an unknown
land. Da Souza was gorgeous in frock coat and silk hat, a carnation
in his buttonhole, a diamond in his black satin tie, yet h