All the next day this double mood haunted him. It was mixed with vague suspicions of interference and quarrel; it left him ill at ease, until, upon the morning of the morrow, there reached him a charming note, straightforward, easy and most terse; the notepaper was plain and thick, the hand fluent, the phraseology easy. It was a letter worthy of the care with which Mr Burden preserved it. It spoke of his son’s great promise, praised his University record and the multitude of his friends; it begged that Cosmo’s acquaintance with Charles might take the place of an introduction; it assured Mr Burden, with open emphasis, that no one in England had a greater right to consult every judgment upon a matter where his firm’s enterprise in trade had, almost alone, laid the foundation of our power. Nothing of moment remained, save the signature, the simple word “Benthorpe,” written undoubtedly with a thick quill;—and the old-world courtesy of a postscript, begging that Mr Burden would let the writer know upon what day and by what train he would reach Great Monckton, “the next,” ran the last words of the letter, “the next after the quiet little wayside station of Keynes.” * * * * * It is always a matter of balance for the judicious mind, when it meditates an approach upon Placton, whether it should travel by the Great Western to Halsden Junction or the South-Western line to Great Monckton. Each is at an equal distance of three miles from the mansion, but a host of considerations, which might prove tedious to the anxious reader of his fortunes, ultimately decided Mr Burden to attempt the latter. It was from Waterloo, not from Paddington, that he engaged upon that fateful journey which came so near to transforming the fortunes of our race. The mixture in him of audacity and routine—a mixture common to the mercantile classes of our countrymen—awakened the struggle which lasted during the whole journey to the quiet little wayside station of Keynes. He was alone. In the days when the distinction was of importance he had acquired a habit of travelling first class; this habit he had preserved. He owed to it the solitude which permitted such a conflict to arise in his mind. His fortune had been inherited from so solid an ancestry, had been preserved by so persistent an effort of probity and diligence, that any speculation whatsoever had for him, at his age, a savour of sacrilege. On the other hand, the expansion of the British Raj, his faith in its future, the example of so many nations created out of nothing by the confidence of his contemporaries, above all, the remarkable wealth acquired by those who had risked all upon the destiny of the Empire, led him on to boldness. Hard-headed business men are not easily to be persuaded when opposing arguments present themselves to the mind. Mr Burden was not resolved when he reached at last the quiet little wayside station of Keynes.