For when Despard brought the old man back from London, he had stayed on at Blackthorn Farm, and he had seized every opportunity of making love to Marjorie—even after she had told him his case was hopeless, that her heart was already given. Despard had merely laughed and said he intended to win her in spite of all opposition. At first his attitude puzzled her, for she could not conceive why a man of his type should wish to marry into a family whose name was now a byword in the county. Her father encouraged him, moreover, and did everything in his power to make her look kindly on Despard’s suit. It was only the night before she left for Calais that she discovered the reason. Despard had insisted on paying off the mortgage which Sir Reginald held on Blackthorn Farm, and the homestead was once again her father’s property. Crichton, too, had acted very generously in the matter of paying the conveyancing expenses himself. Instead of being grateful, Marjorie was shocked and horrified. It seemed as if the three men had laid their heads together and planned this thing to put her in their power. It was a trick on Despard’s part, and Sir Reginald had helped him—not really for John Dale’s sake, but in order to save his own son from what he considered would be a mesalliance. To a certain extent she was right. But Despard had another and stronger motive for his generosity in paying off the mortgage on the farm and handing the estate back to the man who had, only a month or two ago, been a stranger to him. The reason was to be found in the old tin mine where Rupert and he had suddenly discovered the presence of pitch-blende, firing their imaginations with thoughts of radium—and a fortune. News of what was happening in the outside world seldom reached Marjorie in Calais. And the only news she received of what was taking place in the wilds of Dartmoor was contained in a weekly letter from her father. He refrained from telling her everything. Jim wrote to her daily. They were very wonderful letters telling her of his work, telling her of his love. But for those letters she would never have remained for half those long, weary months in the conventional Anglo-French family in the sleepy little town of Calais. But even Jim did not know what was taking place at Blackthorn Farm until the news became public property, and the great boom which Despard cleverly engineered was burst on a credulous, Tango-dancing world. By that time Marjorie had returned home to find Despard ensconsed at Blackthorn Farm, the land surrounded and over-run by a small army of men, and Jim Crichton still absent with his corps at Netheravon.