e way, I have not seen
you at Mrs. Cunningham's for the last week, and you used to be a pretty
regular visitor."

"No," the young man said gloomily; "I don't mind telling you that Miss
Conyers refused me a fortnight ago. I never thought that I had much
chance, but I had just a shadow of hope, and that is at an end now."

"Perhaps in the future--" Mark suggested for the sake of saying
something.

"No; I said as much as that to her, and she replied that it would
always be the same, and I gathered from her manner, although she did not
exactly say so, that there was someone else in the case, and yet I have
never met anyone often there."

"Perhaps you are mistaken," Mark said.

"Well, whether or not, there is clearly no hope for me. I am very sorry,
but it is no use moping over it. My father and mother like her so much,
and they are anxious for me to marry and settle down; altogether, it
would have been just the thing. I do not know whether she has any money,
and did not care, for of course I shall have plenty. I shall be a junior
partner in another six months; my father told me so the other day. He
said that at one time he was afraid that I should never come into the
house, for that it would not have been fair to the others to take such
a reckless fellow in, but that I seemed to have reformed so thoroughly
since that affair that if I continued so for another six months they
should have no hesitation in giving me a share."

It was too late to go up to Islington that evening. In the morning Mark
went with the still unopened letter to the solicitor's. The old lawyer
congratulated him most heartily when he told him of the discovery that
he had made.

"I am glad indeed, Mark; not so much for the sake of the money, but
because I was afraid that that confounded treasure was going to unsettle
your life. When a man once begins treasure hunting it becomes a sort of
craze, and he can no more give it up than an opium smoker can the use
of the drug. Thank goodness, that is over; so the capital amount is
doubled, and you are accordingly worth 70,000 pounds more than you were
this time yesterday--a fine windfall! Now let us see what your uncle
says."

He broke the seal. The letter was a short one, and began:

"My DEAR JOHN:

"If you have not, before you receive this, got my treasure, you will get
it on the 18th or 19th of August, 17??89. I have made a will which will
give you full instructions what to do with it. I may say, t