"Good!" He took out his watch. "I've five minutes more. Now look here. I'm not going to say that you haven't managed this thing well--you have!--and that you can, if you like, get along without me--you can! See! I'm not going to say that I went into this thing without the prospect of making something out of it myself. I have! That's business. The thing for you to consider now is this: understanding each other as we do, couldn't you push this thing through better with my help--and helping me--than to go elsewhere! Understand me! You could find a dozen men in San Francisco who would make you as good an offer and better! But it wouldn't be to their interest to keep down any unpleasant reminders of the past as it would be mine. You understand?" Mrs. Conroy replied by extending her hand. "To keep my secret from every one--from _him_," she said earnestly. "Certainly--_that's_ business." Then these two artful ones shook hands with a heartfelt and loyal admiration and belief for each other that I fear more honest folks might have profited by, and Mr. Dumphy went off to dine. As Mrs. Conroy closed the front door, Olly came running in from the back piazza. Mrs. Conroy caught her in her arms and discharged her pent-up feelings, and, let us hope, her penitence, in a joyful and passionate embrace. But Olly struggled to extricate herself. When at last she got her head free, she said angrily-- "Let me go. I want to see him." "Who--Mr. Dumphy?" asked Mrs. Conroy, still holding the child, with a half-hysterical laugh. "Yes. Gabe said he was here. Let me go, I say!" "What do you want with him?" asked her captor with shrill gaiety. "Gabe says--Gabe says--let me go, will you? Gabe says he knew"---- "Whom?" "My dear, dear sister Grace! There! I didn't mean to hurt you--but I must go!" And she did, leaving the prospective possessor of two and a half millions, vexed, suspicious, and alone. CHAPTER III. MR. DUMPHY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND. Peter Dumphy was true to his client. A few days after he had returned to San Francisco he dispatched a note to Victor, asking an interview. He had reasoned that, although Victor was vanquished and helpless regarding the late discovery at One Horse Gulch, yet his complicity with Mrs. Conroy's earlier deceit might make it advisable that his recollection of that event should be effaced. He was waiting a reply when a card was brought to him by a clerk. Mr. Dumphy glanced at it impatiently, and read the name of "Arthur Poinsett." Autocrat as Dumphy was in his own counting house and business circle, the name was one of such recognised power in California that he could not ignore its claims to his attention. More than that, it represented a certain respectability and social elevation which Dumphy, with all his scepticism and democratic assertion, could not with characteristic shrewdness afford to undervalue. He said, "Show him in," without lifting his head from the papers that lay upon his desk.