Jeckie had only just left the villa residence, when Albert returned to the midday dinner. His wife said nothing of her visitor, and Albert was too full of his usual bar-parlour gossip to notice that Lucilla was remarkably preoccupied and absent-minded. He remained innocent and unconscious of what was going on, nor was he aware that Jeckie Farnish visited Lucilla during several successive mornings, and that on the last two, both women went into town, and were closeted for some time with, first, solicitors, and, second, bankers. Albert, indeed, never entered into the thoughts of either Lucilla or Jeckie; he was not even a circumstance to be taken into account. There was, however, a man in the neighbourhood who had Miss Jecholiah Farnish very much in his thoughts at this time. This was Farebrother, a more observant man than Mortimer, and Farebrother at last tackled his friend definitely as they sat dining one night in the parlour of the "Coach-and-Four." "Look here!" he said, suddenly. "It's about time you knew what this Farnish woman's going to do. If you want the plain truth, Mortimer, I don't trust her." "Oh, she's all right," exclaimed Mortimer. "A keen business woman, no doubt, but not the sort to----" "My lad!" interrupted Farebrother, "you're always too optimistic, and too ready to believe in people. The woman's just the sort to do anybody out of anything--she did both you and Scholes over the land. It's hers--and so is all that's beneath it, to the centre of the earth. You should have bought it yourself." "I?--a complete stranger!" protested Mortimer. "Impossible! There would have been suspicion with a vengeance!" "Then you should have made an arrangement with her before she got it," said Farebrother. "She's got it now--and all that it implies. And my belief is that she's up to something. The last two or three times I've been in the town I've seen her coming out of solicitors' offices--she's at some game or another. She'll do you out of any share that you want to get in this very promising mine unless you're careful, and if you take my advice you'll put it straight and unmistakably to her, and ask her what she's going to do." Mortimer protested and explained, but when dinner was over he went round to Jeckie's private door, and after a slight interchange of casual remarks, asked her point-blank what she was going to do about starting a company to work the mine. Jeckie pointed to a large, legal-looking envelope which lay on the table. "It's done," she said calmly. "There'll be no company. Me and a friend of mine have gone into partnership to work it--there's the deed, duly signed to-day. We're going to start operations very soon." Mortimer felt his cheeks flush--more from the memory of what Farebrother had said than with his very natural indignation.