No one, indeed, judging from the bare outline of Julian’s daily life during that hot August, could have wondered at the signs of physical wear and tear that he exhibited. Ten o’clock, on every one of those sultry days, found him at work, not indeed in the Temple, but in an office in the City; and it was from the same office that he would issue forth at about five o’clock to catch the train for Henley, sometimes with sullen determination, sometimes with a pale, fierce excitement on his face. The affairs of the Welcome Diamond Mining Company had readjusted themselves, after the blow which had threatened the company’s very existence, as hardly the most sanguine could have hoped. Ten days after the announcement of the presence of water in the mine, some of the newspapers published another telegram which had been received by the directors. The passage of the water, by which the existing mine was rendered practically useless, had revealed hitherto unsuspected possibilities, and there appeared to be little doubt that the first mine had been, as it were, only a pledge of still richer strata yet to be worked. One telegram followed another, confirming the report in greater detail. Prospectuses were issued, setting forth a proposal to utilise the opportunity thus opened, and debentures were issued for the providing of the necessary funds. These debentures were taken up somewhat slowly at first, but on the arrival in England of specimens of diamonds from the new lead, together with a circumstantial report, they were taken up with a rush. Works were understood to be already on foot, and dividends were looked for at an early date. The new managing director of the company was Julian Romayne. There was a kind of dry excitement about him to-night behind the deliberate assumption of conversational interest which was his never-changing manner with his mother now, and his hand shook a little as he poured himself out more wine than usual. He did not rejoin his mother in the drawing-room, saying something as she left him about having letters to write; and two hours afterwards he was walking up and down the lawn in the moonlight with a cigar. There was a fierce restlessness in his step, and there was a fierce restlessness in his face, too. He had been walking there for half an hour when a shadow passed across the blind of the drawing-room window--the night was very hot and the window was wide open--and the blind was drawn up. Mrs. Romayne’s figure stood there outlined by the lamplight within. The drawing-room window was shadowed from the moonlight by an angle of the house. “Good night, Julian!” she called. Julian stopped in his walk mechanically. “Good night, mother!” he answered. The figure in the window seemed to hesitate for a moment; then Mrs. Romayne moved and drew down the blind, the lights in the room behind went out one by one, and Julian resumed his walk in the moonlight as mechanically as he had stopped it.