"You shall, you must accept it," cried the prostrate man, energetically. "I should care no more for all the money in the world than for a handful of pebbles on the beach below. With the money in my possession, should I see my friends wanting it? Besides, the sum I am to come into will be so great that even largely as you have suffered through that bank, I shall be able to spare you what you want to make good the breach, and still leave myself in absolute affluence." The manner of the Frenchman was one of utter self-possession, and it confounded Mr. O'Donnell to find one so apparently sane talking such trash. "May I ask you," said the old man, "if it is a fair question, from what source you expect to acquire this fortune?" "I am under an oath of secrecy in the matter, and cannot tell you. But since I have been hurt, the person who is working the affair for me, or rather on our joint behalf, has paid me a visit, and assured me there is not the least prospect of failure or miscarriage, and that at the end of six, and certainly in less than eighteen months from this, I should be in possession of my share, not less than half a million sterling." The figures six and eighteen months appealed to certain possible exigencies in the mind of Mr. O'Donnell, and carried his mind away from the main prospect of the consideration to the details. "I suppose," he thought, "they will make the first 'calls' light, so as to get all they can out of the poorer shareholders. Then they will go on increasing the sums of the 'calls' as the poorer ones drop off, and this they cannot do under a certain time. Of course, I can pay the 'calls' up to a certain point, but when they reach the end of the poorer shareholders, and have to fall back on the five or six men of large means, I shall certainly be ruined. But I do not think they can reach the point at which I should be left absolutely penniless before eighteen months." Lavirotte and Mr. O'Donnell talked on for half-an-hour in the same strain. The Frenchman was careful to adhere strictly to his vow to Crawford, and yet to say such things to the merchant as in the end convinced him there was at least something in the statements made by his son's friend. At last he looked at his watch, and saw there was no time to lose if they would catch the last train to Rathclare. After a cordial parting with the Frenchman he went down, and found his wife waiting for him. By this time both were radiant. One had firm faith in the recovery of her son, the other full assurance of the salvation of his position. CHAPTER XXVII.