"Caroline, I _hate_ the profession, and how I came ever to be such a fool as to go into it I cannot understand," said Mark, throwing himself on a chair as he plunged into confidence. "So long as the doctor lived I could not well say anything about it; I did not see my way clear to do so. But things have altered now, and I think I shall give up the medical life." "But--good gracious, Mark!--I can't understand," exclaimed Caroline, in her bewilderment. "If you give up your profession, you give up our means of living. We can't starve." "Starve!" laughed Mark. "Can't you trust me better than that? Look here, Caroline; let us come to figures. I don't suppose I should clear at first above eight hundred a-year, or so, by the practice----" "O, Mark!" "Well, say a thousand for argument's sake. Let us assume that I net it clear. It's a nice income, no doubt, but I shall make three times that, if I go into the thing in London." Caroline, half doubting, half eager, all bewildered, sat waiting to hear more. "There's a splendid opportunity offered me if I give up the medical profession and embark altogether in a new line of life. I--you have heard me speak of my old chum Barker, have you not?" he broke off to ask. "Barker?" she repeated. "Yes, I think I remember the name. He got into some dreadful trouble, did he not, and was sent to prison?" "Sent to prison! how you speak of things! All that's over and done with. His friends were wretched screws, doing him out of money that ought to have come to him, and the consequence was that Barker got into the Queen's Bench. Half the gentlemen of England have been there some time in their lives," added Mark, loftily, as if he were just then deeming the thing an honour. "Well, Caroline, that was over long ago, and Barker has now the most magnificent prospect before him that one can well imagine; he will be making his thousands and thousands a-year." "How is he going to make it?" asked Caroline. "And he has offered me a share in it," continued Mark, too eager to attend to irreverent questions. "He is one who knows how to stand by an old friend. _Thousands_ a-year, it will be." "But, Mark, I ask you how he is going to make it?" "It is connected with mines and pumping, and all that sort of thing," lucidly explained Mark. "Mines and pumping!" "Caroline, dear, you cannot be expected to understand these things. _Enormous_ fortunes are being made at them," continued Mark, in a rapture. "Some of the mines yield fifty thousand pounds profit the first year of working. I declare when I first heard of Barker's prospects I was fit to eat my fingers off, feeling that I was tied down to be a paltry pitiful country surgeon. Folks go ahead nowadays, Caroline. And, as Barker has generously come forward with the offer that I should join him, I think I ought to accept it in justice to you. My share the first year would be about three thousand, he computes."