Marston Loring was sitting at his writing-table, writing with an intentness which harmonised oddly with the suggestion of his evening dress--correct and up-to-date in the minutest particular. He had come rapidly out from the inner room two or three minutes before, evidently acting upon a recently-formed determination; and he was writing now swiftly and decisively. But there was nothing of rashness or impulsiveness about his face or manner as he wrote; they were even keener, more calculating and cynical than usual. He finished his note, directed it with the same decision, pushed it aside, and, taking up an open letter which had been lying before him as he wrote, leant back in his chair, and began to re-read it. The note, on which the ink was scarcely dry, was addressed to a broker in the City. The letter which he had taken up bore the postmark of a small town in South Africa, and was marked “Private” and “Urgent.” Three days had passed since Julian’s explanation to his mother as to his relations with Miss Pomeroy. Marston Loring had come back from South Africa three months before, with some very excellent machinery ready to his hand for the production of what would materially simplify and embellish his future career--a large fortune. That the machinery was such as a man of honour would have hesitated to put in motion; that the hands which worked it could hardly escape unstained, affected him not at all. The stains were not such as could be pointed at; it was hardly likely that they would be detected. Certain fellow mechanics were necessary to the proceedings; one of these he had found in Ramsay; the other he had created, so to speak, in Julian Romayne. The first noticeable production of that machinery had been that first decisive rise in “Welcomes” at the end of June; and since that time it had been worked--mainly by the master-mechanics, Ramsay and Loring--with unceasing skill, energy, and unscrupulousness. Various causes had co-operated to prevent such a speedy consummation as Loring had anticipated when he told Julian that the inside of a month would see the end of the proceedings. The month had gone by, and the shares, though they were now worth ten times as much as had been paid for them by the three in whose hands they lay, had not yet touched the highest value to which it was proposed to raise them--to which they were rising, as a matter of fact, with ever-increasing rapidity. And yet, notwithstanding the apparent certainty that in another week his shares would have materially increased in value, the note which Loring had just written contained instructions for the disposal of all his interest in the Welcome Diamond Mining Company, without fail, on the following day.