the lady, in that subdued manner with which one
comments upon a well-known accident, "it must have been a great shock to
you to be so suddenly deprived of so large a fortune."

"Not only that, but to find that the black sheep who got it all sailed
for India within a week of my uncle's death! Lady Devine got a letter
from him on the day of the funeral to say that he had taken his passage
in the Hydaspes for Calcutta, and never meant to come back again!"

"Sir Richard Devine left no other children?"

"No, only this mysterious Dick, whom I never saw, but who must have
hated me."

"Dear, dear! These family quarrels are dreadful things. Poor Lady
Devine, to lose in one day a husband and a son!"

"And the next morning to hear of the murder of her cousin! You know that
we are connected with the Bellasis family. My aunt's father married a
sister of the second Lord Bellasis."

"Indeed. That was a horrible murder. So you think that the dreadful man
you pointed out the other day did it?"

"The jury seemed to think not," said Mr. Frere, with a laugh; "but I
don't know anybody else who could have a motive for it. However, I'll go
on deck and have a smoke."

"I wonder what induced that old hunks of a shipbuilder to try to cut
off his only son in favour of a cub of that sort," said Surgeon Pine to
Captain Vickers as the broad back of Mr. Maurice Frere disappeared up
the companion.

"Some boyish follies abroad, I believe; self-made men are always
impatient of extravagance. But it is hard upon Frere. He is not a bad
sort of fellow for all his roughness, and when a young man finds that an
accident deprives him of a quarter of a million of money and leaves him
without a sixpence beyond his commission in a marching regiment under
orders for a convict settlement, he has some reason to rail against
fate."

"How was it that the son came in for the money after all, then?"

"Why, it seems that when old Devine returned from sending for his lawyer
to alter his will, he got a fit of apoplexy, the result of his rage, I
suppose, and when they opened his room door in the morning they found
him dead."

"And the son's away on the sea somewhere," said Mr. Vickers "and knows
nothing of his good fortune. It is quite a romance."

"I am glad that Frere did not get the money," said Pine, grimly sticking
to his prejudice; "I have seldom seen a face I liked less, even among my
yellow jackets yonder."

"Oh dear, Dr. Pine! How can you?" interj