“Really,” he continued, “there would seem to be no end to the machinations to which the Agency-Gang have had recourse within the past few years. We shall never know one-tenth of the crimes they committed or tried to commit. Several of the gang’s members were actually staying with Sir Stephen Lethbridge at his place in Cumberland, Abbey Hall, as his guests, when he shot himself. By the way, I hear that Fobart Robertson has at last been discovered, living in a garret in Lyons, and that he is being brought over to give evidence against his wife and Stapleton and others regarding the secret exportation of the Chinese drug from Shanghai long ago. He ought to prove a useful witness.” And so the clouds which had so darkened Yootha’s and Cora’s happiness, the happiness also of Preston and of Johnson, had at last almost rolled away. The four had arranged to be married towards the end of the month, and already were busy buying _trousseaux_, acknowledging letters of congratulation and the receipt of presents, and attending to the many other matters which so engross prospective brides and bridegrooms. George Blenkiron had promised to act as best man to his life-long friend, Charles Preston, and the latter had decided to send in his papers at an early date, for, though an excellent soldier, the monotonous life of an officer in peace time would, he knew, bore him to extinction. Harry Hopford had asked Johnson to allow him to be his best man, “in return,” as he put it, “for services rendered, and the way I helped to bring about your engagement!” Johnson suspected, and Cora knew, that Hopford himself had been greatly attracted by “the beautiful widow,” as she was commonly called; and perhaps had the lad not had sense enough to realize that for him to hope to marry Cora when almost his sole source of income consisted of the salary he was paid by the newspaper to which he was attached, and the payments he received from miscellaneous other journals to which he contributed, was hopeless, he might have felt tempted to press his own suit. True, he had once gone so far as to think the matter over seriously, carefully weighing the pros and cons, but the decision he had come to was that Cora did not care for him sufficiently to be likely to accept him even should he have the audacity to propose to her. The thought that if he did propose to her and she accepted him he would, after the marriage, be in a position to abandon his profession and live thenceforward on her income, of course, never entered his mind.