"There was only nine hundred when I got 'em."

"There were all that you will get. What kind of notes were they you had
when you paid for the shares at 'Frisco?" This question he asked out loud,
before all the passengers. Then Robert Lefroy left the car, and Mr.
Peacocke never saw him or heard from him again.

Conclusion.

CHAPTER X.

THE DOCTOR'S ANSWER.

WHEN the Monday came there was much to be done and to be thought of at
Bowick. Mrs. Peacocke on that day received a letter from San Francisco,
giving her all the details of the evidence that her husband had obtained,
and enclosing a copy of the photograph. There was now no reason why she
should not become the true and honest wife of the man whom she had all
along regarded as her husband in the sight of God. The writer declared
that he would so quickly follow his letter that he might be expected home
within a week, or, at the longest, ten days, from the date at which she
would receive it. Immediately on his arrival at Liverpool, he would, of
course, give her notice by telegraph.

When this letter reached her, she at once sent a message across to Mrs.
Wortle. Would Mrs. Wortle kindly come and see her? Mrs. Wortle was, of
course, bound to do as she was asked, and started at once. But she was,
in truth, but little able to give counsel on any subject outside the one
which was at the moment nearest to her heart. At one o'clock, when the
boys went to their dinner, Mary was to instruct her father as to the
purport of the letter which was to be sent to Lord Bracy,--and Mary had
not as yet come to any decision. She could not go to her father for
aid;--she could not, at any rate, go to him until the appointed hour
should come; and she was, therefore, entirely thrown upon her mother. Had
she been old enough to understand the effect and the power of character,
she would have known that, at the last moment, her father would certainly
decide for her,--and had her experience of the world been greater, she
might have been quite sure that her father would decide in her favour.
But as it was, she was quivering and shaking in the dark, leaning on her
mother's very inefficient aid, nearly overcome with the feeling that by
one o'clock she must be ready to say something quite decided.

And in the midst of this her mother was taken away from her, just at ten
o'clock. There was not, in truth, much that the two ladies could say to
each other. Mrs. Peacocke felt it t