But Mrs. Heriton’s keener eye detected that the young man was not in his usual spirits, and when she returned to the drawing room her questions quickly drew from the ingenuous Florence a recital of what had occurred. She was lying back on her couch, still quivering with grateful emotion, and caressing the beloved one who had been in such peril, when the gentlemen joined them. A servant had been sent to the nearest town for letters, and Mr. Heriton was unusually eager to examine the bag. But there was nothing in it for him except a few notes and circulars of no importance, and he sat drumming on the table, and sipping his coffee, while Frank Dormer opened the two addressed to himself. From one of his correspondents--a college acquaintance, who was enjoying a few months of London life--he was in the habit of receiving many little bits of town gossip, which he was so accustomed to read aloud, that when he closed his letter Florence exclaimed: “What! No news to-night, Mr. Dormer?” “None worth repeating. In fact, Willis’ letter is filled with lamentations at his own ill fortune. He has suffered himself to be persuaded to take some shares in a new company which has suddenly collapsed. I fear from what he tells me that hundreds will be sufferers by the rascality of the few who had constituted themselves directors.” Mr. Heriton took the cup Florence had just replenished, and carelessly observed: “Ah, there are so many of these mushroom affairs always springing up that it behooves a man to be cautious. Your friend should not have been so easily duped. What was the company called?” Frank referred to his letter, and read aloud the high-sounding appellation. Mr. Heriton’s cup fell from his nerveless hand, he gasped for breath, and then, dashing his hand on the table, cried fiercely: “It is a lie, sir--a lie!” His wife and daughter started up in such terrified surprise that it recalled him to himself. But he was fearfully pale. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Dormer--I really beg your pardon! I don’t know what possessed me. How ridiculous I am! Sit down, Emma. Why do you persist in agitating yourself about nothing? Florence, child, go to your mother. Do you hear?” And he stamped his foot at her so passionately that she shrank from him in tearful affright. With unsteady hand he lit a candle. “I must go to my study. I have letters here that must be answered. Will you excuse me, Mr. Dormer?” When he had quitted the room, Mrs. Heriton, stifling her own dread, quietly said that she believed he had taken a few shares in the defunct company, and felt mortified that his name should be mixed up in a fraudulent concern. The composure of her manner reassured her daughter and deceived Frank, who knew nothing of his host’s affairs, and was thoughtfully musing over the contents of his other missive. He was so absorbed in his musings that he did not hear Florence when she came to bid him good night. Then he started up.