he cried.

"Mr Capel, is it not your duty to find your fortune?"

"Yes, but let me say, our fortune," he cried.

"Mr Capel, do not speak to me again like this. I should feel that I
was standing in your light if I listened now."

"But at some future time?"

She looked at him softly, and his breath went and came fast, as her
speaking eyes rested on his, and he saw the damask-red deepen in her
cheeks.

"Wait till that future time comes," she whispered.

"And you will help me?" he cried.

"Yes," she said, at last, "I will help you--all I can."

He would have caught her in his arms, but she raised her hand.

"I thought we were to be friends."

"Friends," he whispered. "I love you."

"It must be then as a friend," she said, in her low voice; but there was
that in her look which made Capel's heart throb, while, when she
extended her hand, he kissed it, without being aware that Lydia had
entered the room, and drawn back, with a weary look of misery in her
face that she vainly sought to hide.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

IN THE DARK.

"Look here, Kate, I'm not going back till I've had a good try here to
see if something can't be made out of this affair."

Katrine D'Enghien sat in the drawing-room of the Dark House, with her
eyes half closed, as if listening to the ballad Lydia was singing in a
low tone in the corner of the back room, while Capel stood by turning
over the leaves.

The old lawyer was in another corner at a card-table, on whose green
surface lay a heap of papers and parchments, one of which he took up
from time to time, and laid down, after examining it by the light of the
shaded lamp.

"You said only yesterday that you were sick of this domestic cemetery,"
said Katrine.

"So I am, for it's doleful enough for anything here, only it makes me
mad to see such a wealth of art treasures and plate belonging to this
fellow Capel."

"Then it is very evident that you did not filch the old man's treasure,"
said Katrine.

"Yes, my dear, very evident. If I had, I should not be here."

"Unless you thought it better for the sake of throwing people off the
scent," said Katrine, with a peculiar look in his face.

"I say," he cried, returning the gaze, "what do you mean? You don't
think I killed those two fellows, and got the plunder, do you?"

"I don't know," she replied.

"Well, then, I didn't. I never had the chance."

"Or the brains to conceive such a _coup_."

"Look here," cried Artis.

"