ends it on to this one, and he has
his furnaces and his chemicals, and he refines and purifies it and makes
it fit to sell. That's my explanation of it, Robert. Eh, has the old man
put his finger on it?"

"But if that were true, father, the gold must go back again."

"So it does, Robert, but a little at a time. Ha, ha! I've had my eyes
open, you see. Every night it goes down in a small cart, and is sent on
to London by the 7.40. Not in bars this time, but done up in iron-bound
chests. I've seen them, boy, and I've had this hand upon them."

"Well," said the young man thoughtfully, "maybe you are right. It is
possible that you are right."

While father and son were prying into his secrets, Raffles Haw had found
his way to Elmdene, where Laura sat reading the _Queen_ by the fire.

"I am so sorry," she said, throwing down her paper and springing to
her feet. "They are all out except me. But I am sure that they won't be
long. I expect Robert every moment."

"I would rather speak with you alone," answered Raffles Haw quietly.
"Pray sit down, for I wanted to have a little chat with you."

Laura resumed her seat with a flush upon her cheeks and a quickening of
the breath. She turned her face away and gazed into the fire; but there
was a sparkle in her eyes which was not caught from the leaping flames.

"Do you remember the first time that we met, Miss McIntyre?" he
asked, standing on the rug and looking down at her dark hair, and the
beautifully feminine curve of her ivory neck.

"As if it were yesterday," she answered in her sweet mellow tones.

"Then you must also remember the wild words that I said when we
parted. It was very foolish of me. I am sure that I am most sorry if I
frightened or disturbed you, but I have been a very solitary man for a
long time, and I have dropped into a bad habit of thinking aloud. Your
voice, your face, your manner, were all so like my ideal of a true
woman, loving, faithful, and sympathetic, that I could not help
wondering whether, if I were a poor man, I might ever hope to win the
affection of such a one."

"Your good opinion, Mr. Raffles Haw, is very dear to me," said Laura.
"I assure you that I was not frightened, and that there is no need to
apologise for what was really a compliment."

"Since then I have found," he continued, "that all that I had read upon
your face was true. That your mind is indeed that of the true woman,
full of the noblest and sweetest qualities which hum