He broke off; and breaking off, bit his tongue, for that had occurred which had startled him considerably. One unit in his audience, until that moment apparently as quiet and well-behaved as the other units, had suddenly, to all appearances, gone off his head. The young man Shotter, uttering a piercing cry, had leaped to his feet and was exhibiting strange emotion. “What’s that?” cried Sam. “What did you say?” Mr. Cornelius regarded him through a mist of tears. His tongue was giving him considerable pain. “Did you say,” demanded Sam, “that in Finglass’ time San Rafael was part of Mon Repos?” “Yeh,” said Mr. Cornelius, rubbing the wound tenderly against the roof of his mouth. “Give me a chisel!” bellowed Sam. “Where’s a chisel? I want a chisel!” § 2 “Bleck my soul!” said Mr. Cornelius. He spoke a little thickly, for his tongue was still painful. But its anguish was forgotten under the spell of a stronger emotion. Five minutes had passed since Sam’s remarkable outburst in the drawing-room; and now, with Mr. Wrenn and Kay, he was standing in the top back bedroom of San Rafael, watching the young man as he drew up from the chasm in which he had been groping a very yellowed, very dusty package which crackled and crumbled in his fingers. “Bleck my soul!” said Mr. Cornelius. “Good heavens!” said Mr. Wrenn. “Sam!” cried Kay. Sam did not hear their voices. With the look of a mother bending over her sleeping babe, he was staring at the parcel. “Two million!” said Sam, choking. “Two million--count ’em--two million!” A light of pure avarice shone in his eyes. He looked like a man who had never heard of the unhappy fate of Dwight Blenkiron, of Chicago, Illinois, and Genevieve, his bride, _née_ Poskitt; or who, having heard, did not give a whoop. “What’s ten per cent on two million?” asked Sam. § 3 Valley Fields lay asleep. Clocks had been wound, cats put out of back doors, front doors bolted and chained. In a thousand homes a thousand good householders were restoring their tissues against the labours of another day. The silver-voiced clock on the big tower over the college struck the hour of two. But though most of its inhabitants were prudently getting their eight hours and insuring that schoolgirl complexion, footsteps still made themselves heard in the silence of Burberry Road. They were those of Sam Shotter of Mon Repos, pacing up and down outside the gate of San Rafael. Long since had Mr. Wrenn, who slept in the front of that house, begun to wish Sam Shotter in bed or dead; but he was a mild and kindly man, loth to shout winged words out of windows. So Sam paced, unrebuked, until presently other footsteps joined in chorus with his and he perceived that he was no longer alone. A lantern shone upon him. “Out late, sir,” said the sleepless guardian of the peace behind him. “Late?” said Sam. Trifles like time meant nothing to him. “Is it late?” “Just gone two, sir.” “Oh? Then perhaps I had better be going to bed.”