I only
meant it was a pity you let this thing get talked of before you had
more certainty. I needn't tell you, Jim, how glad we shall all be to
hear of anything really to your advantage."

"I'm not aware that the thing has been talked about. I only mentioned
it to one or two personal friends, with a view to obtaining their
advice."

"Your friends have not been discreet, then," said Hendrick; "why, Jim,
the whole town is talking about you, and should this come to nothing,
you will have made yourself ridiculous. Had you no truer or older
friends with whom you might have consulted? I 'm sorry for this, Jim."

"If you mean Mr. Smith and yourself, I must say you did not seem to
take much interest in my welfare--and Elsie is not much better," he
added, bitterly. "Perhaps it will be different now."

"Come, Jim, you don't believe a word of all that. You know well who
your truest friends are, though we don't always encourage all your
notions. But will you not let me see this famous letter?"

Hendrick read the letter carefully, and then asked, "And what do you
mean to do, Jim?"

"Why of course go over to see her ladyship as soon as I can arrange
matters here. I shall speak to Messrs. Moore to-morrow, and see
whether they can let me free at once--I should think under the
circumstances they would."

"My dear Jim," cried the reader, "are you mad? You don't seriously
mean to give up, or run the risk of losing, your situation for what may
after all prove a wild goose chase?"

This was just what Jim had contemplated, and it was not without
difficulty that good George Hendrick brought him to a sounder judgment.
Unlike Jim's youthful friends, who, partly animated by love of mischief
and partly by youth's natural hopefulness, had encouraged him to
indulge the most glowing fancies, Hendrick showed him gently, but
plainly, how fragile was the foundation on which he had been building.
The watch might have been stolen, or lost, or given away. There might
turn out to be no direct or traceable connection between Lady Waterham
and the unknown woman whose property it had been. Jim was not shaken
in his own private conviction (strengthened as it had been by his
dream), but he was too hard-headed not to admit the reasonableness of
Mr. Hendrick's arguments; and the more he heard of the tales that had
been circulated, the more deeply he regretted his pride and misplaced
confidence. He finally made no objection to Hendrick's prop