Crampton took out his silk pocket-handkerchief, and began to polish his glasses as he gazed hard at his employer after following Uncle Luke to the door, which was closed sharply. "Poor Harry Vine!" said Van Heldre sadly. "Combining with another to rob himself. Surely the ways of sin are devious, Crampton?" "Yes," said the old man thoughtfully. "I wish I had waited till you got well." "Too late to think of that, Crampton," said Van Heldre sadly. "When do you go to Pradelle's trial?" "There, sir, you've been an invalid, and you're not well yet. Suppose we keep that trouble buried, and let other people dig it up, and I'll go when I'm obliged. I suppose you don't want to screen him?" "I screen him?" "Hah!" ejaculated the old clerk, who began rubbing his hands, "then I'm all right there. I should like to see that fellow almost hung--not quite." "Poor wretch!" "Know anything about--eh?" "Harry Vine? Not yet. Only that he has escaped somewhere, I hope, for good." "Yes, sir, I hope so too--for _good_." Volume 3, Chapter XXIV. TRIED IN THE FIRE. After, as it were, a race for life, the breathless competitors seemed to welcome the restful change, and the sleep that came almost unalloyed by the mental pangs which had left their marks upon the brows of young and old. And swift tides came and went with the calms and storms of the western coast, but somehow all seemed to tell of rest and peace. It was a year after Victor Pradelle had been placed in what Sergeant Parkins facetiously termed one of her Majesty's boarding-schools, under a good master, that John Van Heldre wrote the following brief letter in answer to one that was very long, dated a month previous to the response, and bearing the post-mark of the Straits Settlements:-- "Harry Vine,--I quite appreciate what you say regarding your long silence. I am too old a man to believe in a hasty repentance forced on by circumstances. Hence, I say, you have done wisely in waiting a year before writing as fully as you have. George and Luke Vine have always been to me as brothers. You know how I felt toward their son. I say to him now, you are acting wisely, and I am glad that you have met such a friend as Richard Leslie. "Certainly: stay where you are, though there is nothing to fear now from the law, I guarantee that. The years soon roll by. I say this for all our sakes. "As to the final words of your letter--one of my earliest recollections is that of my little hands being held together by one whom you lost too soon in life. Had your mother lived your career might have been different. What I was taught as my little hands were held together, I still repeat: `As we forgive them that trespass against us.' Yes. Some day I hope to give you in the flesh that which I give you in spirit now--my hand." ------------------------------------------------------------------------