He loved her--this man who loved nothing and nobody living, not even himself. He loved her--this man whose life was all behind him, and whose heart was of stone, and whose speech was acrid as the most corrosive element known to chemistry. But a few "passes" of sweet Sorceress Lilith's magical wand and the stone heart had split to fragments, pouring forth, giving release to, a warm well-spring. A well-spring? A very torrent, deep, fierce, strong, but not irresistible--as yet. Still there were moments when to keep it penned within its limits was agony--agony untold, superhuman, well-nigh unendurable. He loved her--he who was bound by legal ties until death. With all the strong concentrative might of his otherwise hard nature, he loved her. The dead dismal failure of the past, the sombre vistas of the future, were as nothing compared with such moments as this. Yet none suspected, so marvellously did he hold himself in hand. Even the most jealous of those who saw them frequently together--George Falkner, for instance, and others--were blind and unsuspecting. But--what of Lilith herself? CHAPTER VIII. DARK DAYS. The share market at Johannesburg was rapidly going to the deuce. Some there were who ardently wished that Johannesburg itself had gone thither, before they had heard of its unlucky and delusive existence, and among this daily increasing number might now be reckoned Laurence Stanninghame. He, infected with the gambler's fever of speculation, had not thought it worth while to "hedge"; it was to be all or nothing. And now, as things turned out, it was nothing. The old story--a fictitious market, bolstered up by fictitious and inflated prices; a sudden "slump," and then--everybody with one mind eager to dispose of scrip, barely worth the paper of which it consisted--in fact, unsaleable. King Scrip had landed his devoted subjects in a pretty hole. "You're not the only one, Stanninghame--no, not by a long, long chalk," said Rainsford ruefully, as they were talking matters over one day. "I'm hard hit myself, and I could point you out men here who were worth tens of thousands a month ago, and couldn't muster a hard hundred cash at this moment if their lives depended on it--worse, too, men whose overdraft is nearly as big as their capital was the same time back." "I suppose so. Yet most fellows of that kind are adepts at the fine old business quality of besting their neighbours, one in which I am totally lacking, possibly owing to want of practice. They can go smash and come up smiling, and in a little while be worth more than ever. They know how to do it, you see, and I don't. Smash for me means smash, and that of a signally grievous kind." Rainsford looked at him curiously. "Oh, bother it, Stanninghame, you're no worse off than the rest of us. We've got to lie low and hang on for a bit, and watch our chances." "Possibly you are right, Rainsford. No doubt you are. Still every donkey knows where his own saddle galls him."