'I have been suddenly called away to the North, and may be gone for a week or ten days. I am sorry to be away at this particular juncture, but as it is not likely that the men will have the offices finished before I come back, no great harm will be done. Meanwhile I shall see several gentlemen I have in my mind's eye, men that seldom come to London, who will be of great service to us. If you think of anything to forward the mica-mine, pray go on with it. You can send any letters for me to my uncle, and I shall get them. As there is no hurry in the matter of time, however, I should strongly advise that nothing be done until my return, when we can all go at the business with a will. 'Yours truly, 'WILLIAM LONGWORTH.' When Wentworth had finished reading this letter, the two young men looked at each other. 'What do you make of that?' said Kenyon. 'I'm sure I do not know. In the first place, he is gone for a week.' 'Yes; that one thing is certain.' 'Well now, John, one of two things has to be done. We have either to trust this Longworth, or we have to go on alone without him. Which is it to be?' 'I am sure I don't know,' answered Kenyon. 'But, my dear fellow, we have come to a point when we must decide. You are, evidently, suspicious of Longworth. What you say really amounts to this: that he, for some reason of his own, which I confess I cannot see or understand, desires to delay forming this company until it is too late.' 'I didn't say that.' 'You say what practically amounts to that. Either he is honest or he is not. Now, we have to decide to-day, and here, whether we are going to ignore him and go on with the forming of the company, or work with him. Unless you can give some good reason for doing otherwise, I propose to work with him. I think it will be very much worse if he leaves us now than if he had never gone into it. People will ask why he left.' 'Probably he wouldn't leave, even if you wanted him to do so. He has your signature to an agreement, and you have his.' 'Certainly.' 'I do not see how we can help ourselves.' 'Then I think these suspicions should be dropped, because you cannot work with a man whom you suspect of being a rascal.' 'I quite admit of the justice of that, so I shall say nothing more. Meanwhile, do you propose to wait until he comes back?' 'I shall write him to-night and ask him what he intends to do. I shall tell him, as I have told him before, that time is pressing, and we want to know what is being done.' 'Very well,' said John; 'I will wait till you get the answer to your letter. In the meantime, I do not see that there is anything to do but occupy this gorgeous office as well as I can, and wait to see what turns up.' 'That is my own idea. I think, myself, it is rather unfair to suspect a man of being a villain when he has really done nothing to show that he is one.' To this John made no answer.