They were at the end of the lane. Before them was a gate, with a stile, leading into some fields and high grounds that overlooked the town. Maria stopped. "I must go back. I have come too far already," she said. Philip took both her hands and gazed fondly into her eyes. Then, before she was aware of his intention, or had time to offer any resistance, his arms were round her, she was pressed to his heart, and one burning kiss was left upon her lips. Next moment, without a word, he was gone, vaulting lightly over the stile and away into the meadows beyond. With hot cheeks and a beating heart, Maria retraced her steps to the town. "What was it that she would see by waiting a little while?" she presently began to ask herself. Philip had spoken with significant meaning. The two hundred pounds won by Philip Cleeve on Patchwork, at the Newmarket Spring Meeting, had to a great extent recouped him for his gambling losses. But some months had passed away since then, and his capital had again been dipped into pretty deeply. For one thing, he was less frugal in his habits than of old. His mother's allowance no longer sufficed to find him in clothes and pocket-money. His tailor's and bootmaker's bills were twice as heavy as they used to be, and of late there was no more fashionably dressed young man in Nullington than Philip Cleeve. At one time he had been content to play billiards for sixpence a game, but nothing less than half-a-crown a game would do for him now. He went to The Lilacs once a week, sometimes oftener, and although he no longer joined the card-table so frequently as in those earlier days, preferring to talk with Mrs. Ducie or turn over her music, yet he could not keep aloof from play altogether, and it was no unfrequent thing for him to find himself minus ten or fifteen sovereigns when he reached home. In short, by the beginning of September his capital had again shown a very serious deficit. More than once Captain Lennox said to him: "What a pity it is that you did not lay every sovereign you could scrape together on Patchwork. You will never have such a chance again." And Philip agreed with the Captain that it was a pity. One day at The Lilacs, a little while previously to this present time, Philip found a printed paper on the table, which, for want of something better to do, he took up and glanced over. It proved to be a prospectus of the Hermandad Silver Mining Company, Colorado. Philip was surprised to see the name of his host, Captain Lennox, among the list of directors. "Why, Lennox," he said, "I was not aware that you went in for anything of this kind." "It helps to kill time and gives me an excuse for running up to town now and then," answered Lennox. "Besides, these things bring one in contact with a lot of men who may prove useful some day or other." "I presume that the Hermandad Mining Company is a prosperous concern?"