"That will do; that will do," said Uncle Luke stiffly. "The business is settled, then." "No, sir; not yet. I won't be gruff with you, sir, because your motive's honest, and I'm sorry to have to be hard at a time like this." "You dog!" snarled Uncle Luke; "you have me down. Go on, worry me. There, out with it. I haven't long to live. Tell me what I am to give you, and you shall have it." "Your--hand, sir," cried the sergeant; and as it was unwillingly extended he gripped it with tremendous force. "Your hand, sir, for that of a fine, true-hearted English gentleman. No, sir: I'm not to be bought at any price. If I could do it I would, for the sake of that poor broken-hearted girl; but it isn't to be done. I will not insult you, though, by coming here to get information. Good-day, sir; and you can write to me. Good-bye." He gave Uncle Luke's hand a final wring, and then, with a short nod, left the room. "Diogenes the second," said Uncle Luke, with a dry, harsh laugh; "and I've beaten Diogenes the first, for he took a lantern to find his honest man, and didn't find him. I have found one without a light." Volume 3, Chapter XX. UNCLE LUKE TURNS PROPHET. "Why doesn't Leslie come?" said Uncle Luke impatiently, as he rose from a nearly untasted breakfast the next morning to go to the window of his private room in the hotel and try to look up and down the street. "It's too bad of him. Here, what in the world have I done to be condemned to such a life as this?" "Life?" he exclaimed after a contemptuous stare at the grimy houses across the street. "Life? I don't call this life! What, an existence! Prison would be preferable." He winced as the word prison occurred to him, and began to think of Harry. "I can't understand it. Well, he's clever enough at hiding, but it seems very cowardly to leave his sister in the lurch. Thought she was with me, I hope. Confound it, why don't Leslie come?" "Bah! want of pluck!" he cried, after another glance from the window. "Tide must be about right this week, and the bass playing in that eddy off the point. Could have fished there again now. Never seemed to fancy it when I thought poor Harry was drowned off it. Confound poor Harry! He has always been a nuisance. Now, I wonder whether it would be possible to get communication with him unknown to these police?" He took a walk up and down the room for a few minutes. "Now that's where Leslie would be so useful; and he keeps away. Because of Louie, I suppose. Well, what is it? Why have you brought the breakfast back?" "The young lady said she was coming down, sir," said the chambermaid, who had entered with a tray. "Stuff and nonsense!" cried the old man angrily. "Go up and tell her she is not to get up till the doctor has seen her, and not then unless he gives her leave." The maid gave her shoulders a slight shrug, and turned to go, when the door opened, and, looking very pale and hollow-eyed, Louise entered.