him after what he had been accustomed to, but he made the best of
it, and really interested himself in Egyptian trade, till he became a
connoisseur in gum. His principal recreation was shooting at the
Wimbledon butts on Saturday afternoons, he having joined a volunteer
corps for that purpose. He had done so at Harton, and was the best shot
there. He now had to compete with the best in the world, but he had a
marvellous eye, and up to three hundred yards could hold his own with
anybody. At any rate he won enough in prizes to pay all his expenses,
and a little over.

Even when their resources looked lowest, he never thought of selling the
sapphires his mysterious uncle had given him. He did not look upon them
as his own till the ten years were up, or to be used for any purpose but
that of going to find him. They, together with the silver case
containing the parchment and the ring, were locked up in his old-
fashioned, brass-bound desk which he kept in his bedroom. Nobody, not
even Trix, knew anything about them.

That was the one secret the brother and sister did not share. Beatrice
was disrespectful to her Mohammedan relative, and always called him
Uncle Renegade till Harry read Byron's "Siege of Corinth" aloud one
evening. After that she called him Uncle Alp.

But Harry Forsyth was destined to go to Egypt without needing his uncle.
He became more and more trusted by the firm which employed him, and at
last it was determined to send him out to the house at Cairo on
important business. His absence was a desolation for Mrs Forsyth and
Beatrice; but it meant money for one thing, and, what was far more
important in the mother's estimation, it was a change for Harry from the
gloomy monotony of a London office. As for the future she was under no
concern. She knew of Richard Burke's will, and that her children at all
events would be comfortably provided for by it, though she herself might
not outlive her elder brother.

Harry, as he was actually going to the country to which his uncle had
prophesied he would, took to wearing his ring, and carried the silver
case in an inner waistcoat pocket. The sapphires he left in his desk.

CHAPTER FOUR.

"WAYS THAT ARE DARK AND TRICKS THAT ARE VAIN."

While the Forsyth family was passing through its time of trial there had
been other chops and changes going on in the lives of those with whom
their fortunes were more or less connected. Mr Richard Burke had still
fu