does that it's all been a crazy mistake----"

"I was readin' the other day--I'm fond of a good book, I am--occupies
the mind like--but I was readin' about a circus man in South Africa,
what 'e myde a mistyke and took the wrong tryle--and just when 'e was
a-givin' 'imself up for lost among the tigers and the colored savages
'e found 'e'd tumbled on a mine of diamonds. Big 'ouse in Park Lyne in
London now, and 'is daughter married to a Lord."

"Oh, I've tumbled into the mine of diamonds all right. The question
is----"

"If madam really tumbled, or was led by the 'and of Providence."

She laughed, ruefully. "If that was it the hand of Providence 'd have
to have some pretty funny ways."

"I've often 'eard as the wyes of Providence was strynge; but I ain't
so often 'eard as Providence 'ad got to myke 'em strynge to keep pyce
with the wyes of men. Now if the 'and of Providence 'ad picked out
madam for Mr. Rash, it'd 'ave to do somethink out of the common, as
you might sye, to bring together them as man had put so far apart." He
looked round the room with the eye of a head-waiter inspecting a table
in a restaurant. "Madam 'as everythink? Well, if there's anythink else
she's only got to ring."

Bowing himself out he went down the stairs to attend to those duties
of the evening which followed the return of the master of the house.
In the library and dining-room he saw to the window fastenings, and
put out the one light left burning in each room. In the hall he locked
the door with the complicated locks which had helped to guarantee the
late Mrs. Allerton against burglars. There was not only a bolt, a
chain, and an ordinary lock, but there was an ingenious double lock
which turned the wrong way when you thought you were turning it the
right, and could otherwise baffle the unskilful. Occupied with this
task he could peep over his shoulder, through the unlighted front
drawing-room, and see his adored one standing on the hearthrug, his
hands clasped behind him, and his head bent, in an attitude of
meditation.

Steptoe, having much to say to him, felt the nervousness of a prime
minister going into the presence of a sovereign who might or might not
approve his acts. It was at once the weakness and the strength of his
position that his rule was based on an unwritten constitution. Being
unwritten it allowed of a borderland where powers were undefined.
Powers being undefined his scope was the more easily enlarged, though
now and