So indeed it had. Doctor Unonius could not overlook a falsehood, and from that hour his thoughts never rested upon the widow Tresize as a desirable woman to wed. But he had grave searchings of conscience on the part he had been made to play. Undoubtedly he had misled Mr Rattenbury, and--all question of public honesty apart--had perhaps injured that young officer's chances of promotion. The thought of it disturbed his sleep for weeks. In the end he decided to make a clean breast to Mr Rattenbury, as between man and man; and encountering him one afternoon on the Lealand road, drew up old Dapple and made sign that he wished to speak. It's about Mrs Tresize--' he began. 'You've heard, then?' said Mr Rattenbury. 'Heard what?' 'Why, that I'm going to marry her.' 'Oh!' said the doctor; and added after a pause, 'My dear sir, I wish you joy.' 'I don't feel that I deserve her,' said Mr Rattenbury, somewhat fatuously. 'Oh!' said the doctor again. 'As for that--' He did not conclude the sentence, but drove on in meditation. It is to be supposed that with marriage the widow mended her ways. Certainly she can have dabbled no more in smuggling, and as certainly she had told the truth about her age. Thrice in the years that followed Doctor Unonius spent some hours of the night, waiting, in the best kitchen at Landeweddy; and Mrs Rattenbury on neither of these occasions--so critical for herself--forgot to have him provided with a decanter of excellent brandy. The doctor sipping at it and gazing over the rim of the glass at Mr Rattenbury--nervous and distraught, as a good husband should be--on each occasion wondered how much he knew. MUTUAL EXCHANGE, LIMITED. CHAPTER I. Millionaire though he was, Mr Markham (_nee_ Markheim) never let a small opportunity slip. To be sure the enforced idleness of Atlantic crossing bored him and kept him restless; it affected him with _malaise_ to think that for these five days, while the solitude of ocean swallowed him, men on either shore, with cables at their command, were using them to get rich on their own account--it might even be at his expense. The first day out from New York he had spent in his cabin, immersed in correspondence. Having dealt with this and exhausted it, on the second, third, and fourth days he found nothing to do. He never played cards; he eschewed all acquaintance with his fellow men except in the way of business; he had no vanity, and to be stared at on the promenade deck because of the fame of his wealth merely annoyed him. On the other hand, he had not the smallest excuse to lock himself up in his stuffy state-room. He enjoyed fresh air, and had never been sea-sick in his life. It was just habit--the habit of never letting a chance go, or the detail of a chance--that on the fourth morning carried him the length of the liner, to engage in talk with the fresh-coloured young third officer busy on the high deck forward.