n his
breast as he leaned back.

"I think," continued Sir Bale, "ever since they were spoiled, the
Egyptians have been a little shy of lending, and leave that branch of
business to the Hebrews."

"What would you give to know, now, the winner at Heckleston races?" said
Feltram suddenly, raising his eyes.

"Yes; that would be worth something," answered Sir Bale, looking at him
with more interest than the incredulity he affected would quite warrant.

"And this money I have power to lend you, to make your game."

"Do you mean that really?" said Sir Bale, with a new energy in tone,
manner, and features.

"That's heavy; there are some guineas there," said Feltram with a dark
smile, raising the purse in his hand a little, and letting it drop upon
the table with a clang.

"There is _something_ there, at all events," said Sir Bale.

Feltram took the purse by the bottom, and poured out on the table a
handsome pile of guineas.

"And do you mean to say you got all that from a gipsy in Cloostedd
Wood?"

"A friend, who is--_myself_," answered Philip Feltram.

"Yourself! Then it is yours--_you_ lend it?" said the Baronet, amazed;
for there was no getting over the heap of guineas, and the wonder was
pretty equal whence they had come.

"Myself, and not myself," said Feltram oracularly; "as like as voice and
echo, man and shadow."

Had Feltram in some of his solitary wanderings and potterings lighted
upon hidden treasure? There was a story of two Feltrams of Cloostedd,
brothers, who had joined the king's army and fought at Marston Moor,
having buried in Cloostedd Wood a great deal of gold and plate and
jewels. They had, it was said, intrusted one tried servant with the
secret; and that servant remained at home. But by a perverse fatality
the three witnesses had perished within a month: the two brothers at
Marston Moor; and the confidant, of fever, at Cloostedd. From that day
forth treasure-seekers had from time to time explored the woods of
Cloostedd; and many a tree of mark was dug beside, and the earth beneath
many a stone and scar and other landmark in that solitary forest was
opened by night, until hope gradually died out, and the tradition had
long ceased to prompt to action, and had become a story and nothing
more.

The image of the nursery-tale had now recurred to Sir Bale after so long
a reach of years; and the only imaginable way, in his mind, of
accounting for penniless Philip Feltram having all that gold in