At this moment the lamp, short of oil, began to give a feeble and still feebler light. A slight smell of oil filled the room. Both men instinctively glanced up at the lamp. ‘Redgrave, I may, at any rate, assure you that you are not about to marry a thief’s daughter.’ ‘No, sir; probably not. But I may be about to marry the daughter of a man who in some other way has made an enemy of the law.’ ‘Listen,’ said Raphael Craig, ‘and believe that I am not acting now. Twenty years ago I formed a scheme, a life-plan. To the success of this scheme money was absolutely essential, money in large quantities. How was I to get it? I was in the service of a bank, and this fact was very helpful to the success of my scheme. I therefore did not wish to leave the bank. But a bank manager cannot make money. At least, he cannot make much money. I needed a lot. I thought and thought, and at length I arrived at the solution of the problem. I began to _make_ money.’ ‘But how?’ asked Richard, not yet caring to seem to perceive the old man’s meaning. ‘I made it--made it steadily for nearly twenty years.’ ‘You coined it?’ ‘I coined it.’ ‘Then during the whole of this time you have been spreading bad money everywhere, and have never been found out?’ ‘I didn’t make bad money, Redgrave. I made perfectly good money. I cheated no one. I merely sinned against the law. The price of silver, as you know, has been steadily decreasing for many years. The silver in a half-crown, as silver, is now worth little more than a shilling. A half-crown piece is only worth half-a-crown because we choose to call it so. Consult any book on coinage, and you will find that what I say is strictly true. What more easy, then, given the mechanical skill, which I possessed, than to make and utter genuine money at a substantial profit? I made a profit of fifty per cent, on my coinage, and no one on earth can distinguish my money from that of the Mint. It will stand any test.’ Richard did not conceal that he was impressed by the fine simplicity and effectiveness of Raphael’s scheme. ‘But,’ the old man continued, ‘I made money faster than I could get rid of it. It gradually accumulated. Then it was that I invented my Mexican uncle, so that I might deal with the coin more openly.’ ‘Yes?’ said Richard. ‘That is all,’ said Raphael Craig. ‘But the object of the scheme?’ asked Richard. ‘You said you needed all this money for a certain scheme.’ ‘Yes,’ said the old man solemnly, ‘and the scheme is approaching fruition. Yet a little time, and my task will be done.’ ‘It is well,’ Richard put in, ‘that your scheme is nearly completed, for the methods you have employed might even now be found out, and then good-bye to the scheme, whatever it is.’ Raphael Craig smiled.