"You mean to say that your father is actually prepared----"

"Certainly he is--on condition that Sir Charles and he are equal
partners. I'll go and get my father to come round here now. Only I'll
see Sir Charles first."

Beatrice would have dissuaded him, but he would take no refusal. He
burst into the bedroom of the discomfited baronet and asked him to
remove his disguise. Sir Charles was too weak to do more than
remonstrate in a gentlemanly way, but his troubled face grew clear as
Mark proceeded with the argument. The sanguine side of the baronet's
nature came up again.

"Really, my dear boy, this is exceedingly kind of you," he said. "Fact
is, I had not the least idea that I was being treated in a really
scandalous manner. I regarded Sartoris as a thoroughly good fellow who
was going out of his way to do me a service. And if your father says
that those mines are valuable, I am prepared to believe him, for there
is no shrewder judge in the City. As Sartoris is dead, that deed that I
signed falls to the ground."

"It would fall to the ground in any case," Mark said, "seeing that it
was obtained by fraud. Now be so good as to dress yourself properly, and
I will take a cab and go and fetch my father. The whole business can be
settled on the spot."

Mark went off, Beatrice saying that she must go back to Mary Grey.

She hung lovingly on the arm of Mark as they crossed the corridor. The
light was low there and nobody was about.

"I hope you are going to forgive me, dear," she said. "I came very near
to paying a heavy penalty for not trusting in you, Mark. But everything
is going my way now."

"Our way," Mark protested. "I don't care whether anybody is looking or
not, I am going to kiss you, dearest. You have always belonged to me and
to nobody else. I cannot possibly regard you in the light of Stephen
Richford's widow. If I were you, I would not say anything to the others
until after I have settled matters between your father and mine. Let
Mary Grey have a good night's rest, and pack her off to bed as soon as
possible."

Mary was safely in bed and asleep before Mark came back. Berrington
stayed long enough for Beatrice to tell him exactly what had happened.
The melancholy shade that Beatrice had seen so long on Berrington's face
had vanished altogether.

"My poor little girl is going to have peace and happiness at last," he
said, with a deep thrill in his voice. "We shall value it all the more
because we ha