He took the road home over the Bare Plain. Never, since the night of that fatal tragedy, had Frank Raynor taken it by choice: he always chose the highway. But to-night he had a patient lying ill in the cottages on the Plain; and Dr. Raynor had said to him, "Call in and see Weston, Frank, as you return." The visit paid, he continued his way homewards. It was a light night: there were neither stars nor moon: but a white haze seemed to veil the sky, and lighted up surrounding objects. Frank looked towards the Bottomless Shaft as he passed it; his fascinated eyes turning to it of their own accord. Bringing them back with an effort and a shudder, he quickened his pace, and went onwards with his burthensome secret. "Will it lie hidden there for ever?" he said, half aloud. "Pray Heaven that it may!" Dr. Raynor was sitting in the small room behind his surgery; a room chiefly used for private consultations with patients; in his hand was a medical journal, which he was reading by lamplight. He put it down when Frank entered. "I want to ask you something, Uncle Hugh," began Frank, impulsively, as though what he was about to say was good news. "Should I have any difficulty, do you think, in dropping into a practice when I leave you?" "You do mean to leave me, then, Frank?" returned Dr. Raynor, without immediately replying to the question. "Why, of course I do, Uncle Hugh," said Frank, in slight surprise. "It was always intended so. I came here, you know, for two years, and I have stayed longer than that." "And you would not like to remain altogether, and be my partner and successor?" "No," replied Frank, very promptly. "It would be a poor living for two people; my share of it very small, for I could not expect you to give me half the profits. And there are other reasons against it. No, Uncle Hugh; what I want to do is, to jump into some snug little practice in a place where I shall get on. Say in London." A smile crossed the more experienced doctor's lips. Young men are sanguine. "It is not easy to 'jump into a snug little practice,' Frank." "I know that, sir: but there are two ways in which it may be done. One way is, to purchase a share in an established practice; another, to set up well in some likely situation, with a good house and a plate on the door, and all that, and wait for patients to drop in." "But each of those ways requires money, Frank." "Oh, of course," acquiesced Frank, lightly, as though money were the most ordinary commodity on earth. "Well, Frank, where would you find the money? You have not saved much, I take it, out of the salary you have from me." "I have not saved anything: I am never a pound to the good," answered Frank, candidly. "Clothes cost a good deal, for one thing." "When gentlemen dress as you do, and buy their kid gloves by the dozen," said the doctor, archly. "Well, whence would you find the means to set yourself up in practice?"