Lionel Crawford did not go straight to the room where Dora was. He turned into the coffee-room, and there stood a while pondering. Though he was a visionary, a dreamer, a philosopher, he had, before he became immersed in his present studies and pursuits, been, comparatively speaking, a man of the world. For although he had never mingled much in society, he had a tolerable knowledge of what people said and did. What would people say of such conduct as Lavirotte's? They would call it abominable. What would people say of Lavirotte? They would call him a scoundrel. Here was a dilemma. If this strange, this unknown girl, were not to marry Lavirotte but the other man, there seemed on the face of it to be no reason why he might not still marry Dora. It was quite certain his grand-daughter had no hint that Lavirotte's affections had strayed from her. This liking for Miss Creagh might have been only the errant fancy of an hour--of a day--of a week. It might turn out that the landlord had exaggerated the position of Miss Creagh in the matter, and that the encounter had been the result of heated blood, arising from some other cause. If things had only run on smoothly, without this wretched interruption of the fight, how satisfactory all would be. Here was Lavirotte, the owner of the tower, and he, the seeker for the treasure, already bound together in a kind of business contract. And here, then, as a second bond of union between the two, had come Dora. His grand-daughter was to be the other's wife if things had not been disturbed. If Lavirotte and he had shared the treasure equally between them, and then these two young people were married, the whole of the enormous fortune hidden under St. Prisca's Tower would, when he died, be theirs. It would be a thousand pities that such a match should be broken off. The most ordinary prudence pointed at the absurdity of such a step. It would be his duty to his grand-daughter, Lavirotte, and himself, to take care that no such misfortune might befall. The agreement which existed between him and Lavirotte had never been reduced to writing. Neither of them had desired that it should. He knew that such an agreement would not be binding in law. If the finding and retaining of all the treasure was contrary to the law, no instrument embodying the disposal of all the property between him and Lavirotte would hold for one moment. It would be a cruel shame if, after all his years of inquiry and anxiety, when he was working on the mere traditional rumour that a great hoard was concealed somewhere in the city, the labour of that time and the labour of his later years in the tower should all go for nothing, or next to nothing.