Their suspense was not of long duration. In a very short time they were summoned from where they were waiting to another room, where Dr Knatchbull came forward with a face so full of the gravity of the situation that any hope which flickered in Duncan Leslie's breast died out on the instant; and he heard George Vine utter a low moan, as, arm in arm, the two brothers advanced for the identification, and then Luke led his brother away. Leslie followed to lend his aid, but Uncle Luke signed to him to go back. He stood watching them till they disappeared up the narrow path leading to the old granite house, and a sense of misery such as he had never before felt swelled in the young man's breast, for, as he watched the bent forms of the two brothers, he saw in imagination what must follow, and his brow grew heavy as he seemed to see Louise sobbing on her father's neck, heart-broken at her loss. "And yet I could not help clinging to the hope that he had swum ashore," muttered Leslie, as he walked back to the inn, where he found Dr Knatchbull in conversation with the officer. "I wish I had never seen Cornwall, sir," said the latter warmly; "poor lad! poor lad!" "Then there is no doubt whatever?" said Leslie hurriedly. "Identification after all these days in the water is impossible," said the doctor; "I mean personal identification." "Then it may not be after all," said Leslie excitedly. The detective shrugged his shoulders, and took a packet from a little black bag. This he opened carefully, and placed before Leslie a morocco pocket-book and a card-case, both stamped with a gold coronet and the motto, _Roy et Foy_, while, when the card-case was drawn open and its water-soaked contents were taken out, the cards separated easily, and there, plainly enough, was the inscription, the result of Aunt Marguerite's inciting-- "_Henri Comte des Vignes_." Volume 2, Chapter XIX. POLL PERROW GOES A-BEGGING. Dark days of clouds with gloomy days of rain, such as washes the fertile soil from the tops of the granite hills, leaving all bare and desolate, with nothing to break the savage desolation of the Cornish prospect but a few projecting blocks, and here and there a grim-looking, desolate engine-house standing up like a rough mausoleum erected to the memory of so much dead coin. There were several of these in the neighbourhood of Hakemouth, records of mining adventures where blasting and piercing had gone on for years in search of that rich vein of copper or tin, which experts said existed so many feet below grass, but which always proved to be a few feet lower than was ever reached, and instead of the working leading to the resurrection of capital, it only became its grave.