it--rather--and then the stake!
Good God! I'd cheerfully plank down all I've made, and start life
again, _kaal_, [lit: naked] for that. Out he'll have to walk--and not
much to take along with him either. He won't show his nose around that
neighbourhood again. Le Sage will take care of the rest."

Warren was the leading attorney in Gydisdorp. The district was large,
well-to-do, and litigious, wherefore over and above will-drawing and
conveyancing, and so forth, he had as much practice as he could take
care of. There were other matters he undertook, but on the quiet, which
were even more paying. Shafto, who came next to him, used to declare
that Warren ought to be struck off the rolls; but as the two were great
friends and invariably took a couple of "splits" together _per diem_, in
the bar of the Masonic Hotel, nobody believed Shafto--only laughed.
Besides, Warren was popular. He was genial and gifted, could tell a
good story and sing a good song; moreover, he was a keen sportsman. So
life, on the whole, was a rosy thing for him, and more so that Warren's
creed could be summed up in a word and a figure. This was it: Number 1.

Pushing the deeds aside, Warren unlocked a drawer, and produced another
enclosure. This he handled carefully, tenderly one might have said.
Undoing the soft paper wrappings, he extracted a--photograph. Propping
it up on his writing-table, he began to study it, and as he did so his
face softened unconsciously. Then he took up a large magnifying glass.
The powerful lens threw into relief the seductive lines of the splendid
figure, the curve of the smiling mouth, the glad, luminous dilation of
the eyes--and--it was identical with the portrait hanging on Wyvern's
wall--the one that _was_ dusted and cared for.

This had not been given to Warren by its original. Only one had been
given by her to anybody, and it we have seen before. Neither had he
stolen it. But a considerable bribe to the photographer's assistant,
himself in difficulties--Warren was nowhere if he failed to take
advantage of other people's difficulties--had procured him this, and
another copy, which, he kept at his own house. And as the photographer
drove his trade at Cape Town, some hundreds of miles distant from
Gydisdorp, why that rendered the transaction all the safer.

"Out he goes," he murmured mechanically, his glance riveted on the
portrait. "Out he goes--and then--I come in. Only--do I?"

The crack of a wa