summons.
"Listen to this, Ezra. What was our turn over last month, Gilray?"

"Fifteen thousand pounds, sir," said the little clerk, bobbing up and
down like a buoy in a gale in his delight at seeing the junior partner
once again.

"And the expenses?"

"Nine thousand three hundred. Uncommon brown you look, Mr. Ezra, to be
sure, uncommon brown and well. I hopes as you enjoyed yourself in
Africa, sir, and was too much for them Hottenpots and Boars." With this
profound ethnological remark Mr. Gilray bobbed himself out of the room
and went back radiantly to his ink-stained desk.

"Look at that," the old man said, when the click of the outer door
showed that the clerk was out of ear-shot. "Over five thousand profit
in a month. Is it not terrible that such a business should go to ruin?
What a fortune it would have been for you!"

"By heavens, it must be saved!" cried Ezra, with meditative brows and
hands plunged deep in his trouser pockets. "There is that girl's money.
Could we not get the temporary use of it."

"Impossible!" his father answered with a sigh. "It is so tied up in the
will that she cannot sign it away herself until she comes of age.
There is no way of touching it except by her marriage--or by her death."

"Then we must have it by the only means open to us."

"And that is?"

"I must marry her."

"You will?"

"I shall. Here is my hand on it."

"Then we are saved," cried the old man, throwing up his tremulous hands.
"Girdlestone & Son will weather the storm yet."

"But Girdlestone becomes a sleeping partner," said Ezra. "It's for my
own sake I do it and not for yours," with which frank remark he drew his
hat down over his brows and set off for Eccleston Square.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A DANGEROUS PROMISE.

During Ezra Girdlestone's absence in Africa our heroine's life had been
even less eventful than of old. There was a consistency about the
merchant's establishment which was characteristic of the man. The house
itself was austere and gloomy, and every separate room, in spite of
profuse expenditure and gorgeous furniture, had the same air of
discomfort. The servants too, were, with one single exception, from the
hard-visaged housekeeper to the Calvinistic footman, a depressing and
melancholy race. The only departure from this general rule was Kate's
own maid, Rebecca Taylforth, a loudly-dressed, dark-eyed, coarse-voiced
young woman, who raised up her voice and wept when Ezra departe