othing, during the day; and
Valentine was at a loss to perceive any further ground for the
suspicion that had arisen in his mind after the meeting at the Ullerton
station, and the shuffling of the sanctimonious Goodge with regard to
Mrs. Rebecca Haygarth's letters.

Mr. Hawkehurst therefore determined upon boldly cutting the knot that
tied him to the familiar companion of his wanderings.

"I am tired of watching and suspecting," he said to himself. "If my
dear love has a right to this fortune, it will surely come to her; or
if it should never come, we can live very happily without it. Indeed,
for my own part, I am inclined to believe that I should be prouder and
happier as the husband of a dowerless wife, than as prince-consort to
the heiress of the Haygarths. We have built up such a dear, cheery,
unpretentious home for ourselves in our talk of the future, that I
doubt if we should care to change it for the stateliest mansion in
Kensington Palace-gardens or Belgrave-square. My darling could not be
my housekeeper, and make lemon cheese-cakes in her own pretty little
kitchen, if we lived in Belgrave-square; and how could she stand at one
of those great Birmingham ironwork gates in the Palace-gardens to watch
me ride away to my work?"

To a man as deeply in love as Mr. Hawkehurst, the sordid dross which
other people prize so highly is apt to become daily more indifferent; a
kind of colour-blindness comes over the vision of the true lover, and
the glittering yellow ore seems only so much vulgar earth, too mean a
thing to be regarded by any but the mean of soul. Thus it was that Mr.
Hawkehurst relaxed his suspicion of Captain Paget, and neglected his
patron and ally of Gray's Inn, much to the annoyance of that gentleman,
who tormented the young man with little notes demanding interviews.

These interviews had of late been far from agreeable to either of the
allies. George Sheldon urged the necessity of an immediate marriage;
Valentine declined to act in an underhand manner, after the
stockbroker's unexpected generosity.

"Generosity!" echoed George Sheldon, when Valentine had given him this
point-blank refusal at the close of a stormy argument. "Generosity! My
brother Phil's generosity! Egad, that is about the best thing I've
heard for the last ten years. If I pleased, Mr. Valentine Hawkehurst, I
could tell you something about my brother which would enable you to
estimate his generosity at its true value. But I don't pl