"But, Mark, do you mean to say that Mr. Barker has offered you three thousand a-year for nothing? I don't comprehend it at all." "Not for nothing. I should give my services, and I should have to advance a certain sum at the onset. Talk about an investment for your money, Caroline, what investment would be equal to this?" The words startled her for the moment. "I promised poor Uncle Richard that the money should be settled upon me, Mark. He said he urged it as much for your sake as mine." "Of course," said Mark, with acquiescent suavity. "Where there's nothing better to do with money it always ought to be so settled. But only look at this opening! Were your uncle Richard in life, he would be the first to advise the investment of the money in it. Such chances don't happen every day. Caroline, I can't and I won't humdrum on here, buried alive and worked to death, when I may take my place in the London world, a wealthy man, looked up to by society. In your interest, I will not." "Are the mines in London?" asked Caroline. "Good gracious, no! But the office is, where all the money transactions are carried on." "And it is quite a sure thing, Mark?" "It's as sure as the Bank of England. It wants a little capital to set it going, that's all. And that capital can be supplied by your money, Caroline, if you will agree to it. Hundreds of people would jump at the chance." An utter tyro in business matters, in the ways of a needy world, imbued with unbounded faith in her husband, Caroline Cray took all in with eager and credulous ears. Little more than a child, she could be as easily persuaded as one, and she became as anxious to realise the good luck as Mark. "Yes, I should think it is what my uncle would advise were he alive," she said. "And where should we live, Mark?" "We'd live at the West End, Carine; somewhere about Hyde Park. You should have your open and close carriages, and your saddle-horses and servants--everything as it ought to be. No end of good things may be enjoyed with three thousand a-year." "Would it stop at three thousand, Mark?" she questioned, with sparkling eyes. "I don't expect it would stop at twenty," coolly asserted Mark. "How far it would really go on to, I'm afraid to guess. In saying three thousand, I have taken quite the minimum of the first year's profits." "O Mark! don't let it escape you. Write tonight and secure it. How do you know but Barker may be giving it to somebody else?" She was growing more eager than he. In her inexperience, she knew nothing of those miserable calamities--failure, deceit, fruition deferred. Not that her husband was purposely deceiving her; he fully believed in the good luck he spoke of. Mark Cray's was one of those sanguine roving natures which see an immediate fortune in every new scheme brought to them--if it be only wild enough. "How long have you known of this, Mark!"