For full two minutes he held it between his thumb and finger without opening it. “Why need I trouble myself with what it contains?” he muttered. “One more stroke of ill-fortune can matter nothing, and I’m past all hope of any good fortune. To a man who is being stoned to death one stone the more is not worth complaining about. Perhaps it’s to tell me that Aurora has fallen lame or dead. Serve the jade right! I backed her for two thousand at Doncaster, and lost. Perhaps it’s only one of Dimmock’s ‘straight tips,’ imploring me to invest a ‘little spare cash’ on some mysterious favourite that is sure to be scratched before the race comes off. Never again, O Mentor, shall thy fingers touch gold of mine! All the spare cash I have will be needed to pay for my winding-sheet.” With a sneer, he flicked open the envelope that held the telegram, opened the paper, and read the one line that was written therein. “_Lionel Dering is dead. Come here at once!_” The telegram dropped from his fingers—the cigar fell from his lips. A strange, death-like pallor overspread his face. He pressed both his hands to his left side, and sank back in his chair like a man suddenly stricken by some invisible foe. The waiter, who had been hovering near, was by his side in a moment. “Are you ill, sir?” he said. “What can I get you? Would you like a glass of water?” Mr. St. George did not answer in words, but his eyes said Yes. With a deep gasp, that was half a sob, he seemed to recover himself. His hands dropped from his breast, and the colour began to come slowly back into his face. He drank the water, thanked the man, and was left alone to realize the intelligence he had just received. Lionel Dering dead! Impossible! Such news could only be the lying invention of some juggling fiend whose object it was to give him, for one brief moment, a glimpse of Paradise, and then cast him headlong into still deeper caverns of despair than any in which his soul had ever lost itself before. Lionel Dering dead! What did not such news mean to him—if only—if only it were true! It was like a reprieve at the last moment to some poor wretch condemned to die. The news is whispered in his ear, the cords are unloosened, he stares round like a man suddenly roused from some hideous nightmare, and cannot, for a little time, believe that the blissful words he has just heard are really true. So it was with St. George. His brain was in a maze—his mind in a whirl. Again and again he repeated to himself, “It cannot be true!”