Now, whether it was that Mr. Hankes anticipated a time when Mr. Dunn, in his greatness, might soar above the meaner cares of a business life,--when, lifted into the Elysian atmosphere of the nobility, he would look down with contemptuous apathy at the straggles and cares of enterprise,--or whether Mr. Hankes, from sources of knowledge available peculiarly to himself, knew that the fortunes of that great man were not built upon an eternal foundation, but shared in that sad lot which threatens all things human with vicissitude; whether stern facts and sterner figures taught him that all that splendid reputation, all that boundless influence, all that immense riches, might chance, one day or other, to be less real, less actual, and less positive than the world now believed them to be; whether, in a word, Mr. Hankes felt that Fortune, having smiled so long and so blandly on her favorite, might not, with that capriciousness so generally ascribed to her, assume another and very different aspect,--whatever the reason, in short, he deemed the dawn of his own day was approaching, and that, if only true to himself, Mr. Hankes was sure to be the man of the “situation,”--the next great star in the wide hemisphere that stretches from the Stock Exchange to--the Marshalsea, and includes all from Belgravia to Boulogne-sur-Mer. Miss Kellett's abilities, her knowledge, her readiness, her tact, a certain lightness of hand in the management of affairs that none but a woman ever possesses, and scarcely one woman in ten thousand combines with the more male attributes of hard common-sense, pointed her out to Mr. Hankes as one eminently suited to aid his ambition. Now, men married for money every day in the week; and why not marry for what secured not alone money, but fame, station, and influence? Mr. Hankes was a widower; his own experience of married life had not been fortunate. The late Mrs. Hankes was a genius, and had the infirmities of that unsocial class; she despised her husband, quarrelled with him, lampooned him in a book, and ran off with the editor of a small weekly review that eulogized her novel. It was supposed she died in Australia,--at least, she never came back again; and as the first lieutenant gravely confirms the sun's altitude when he mutters, “Make it noon,” so Mr. Hankes, by as simple a fiat, said, “Make her dead,” and none disputed him. At all events, he was a widower by brevet, and eligible to be gazetted a husband at any moment.