mechanical operation; and he had asked himself whether it was necessary that human lives should be risked in such a manner. The great problem of the coal-fields, in those days, was the invention of an efficient coal-cutting machine-a machine which might take the place of the miner, and be sent in to the most dangerous galleries of a colliery without fear of loss of human life. Gerald had set himself the task of solving this problem. It was not an easy one. Many had made the attempt before, and failed. Many were even now competing with our hero in the task. He had many discouragements, and some failures. But he persevered, and at length he succeeded. It was through Redwood's influence that his coal-cutting machine was brought into public notice. It attracted attention immediately. The practical mining institutes. and coal-owners' associations of the north saw that it was what they had wanted so long. Eager capitalists in London offered to purchase it. Men talked about it; the scientific newspapers were full of it. Gerald, as I have said, became famous.

It was at the very time that Grace Heaton was dwelling at Moorfell, virtually the guest of our hero, that this event happened. The weeks went by, and still the wonderful new coal-cutting machine was praised; but yet for some reason or other the coalowners showed little disposition to adopt it. All admitted that it was simple, ingenious, and efficient; it was tried with complete success, and acknowledged to surpass every previous invention of the same description. But it is humiliating to own that, whether for commercial or for private reasons, the coal-owners showed little disposition to bring the machine into general use. The enthusiastic capitalists, who had at first been so liberal in their offers, grew cold; the scientific newspapers found something else to write about, and Gerald was called upon to sustain one of the most common reverses of budding genius-especially of genius which displays itself in mechanical inventions.

But at the very time when he had almost abandoned hope of benefiting in any way by his suddenly acquired fame, he received a note from Redwood one morning, asking him to meet him that day at his office in Newcastle. He hurried away from Moorfell to keep the appointment, and soon found himself in the "grey metropolis of the north" of England. Redwood's office was on the Quayside, in an old building looking across the Tyne to dirty, smoky Gateshead. Here he was introduced by the man who had been so constantly his friend, to a gentleman who was awaiting him-an elderly man, lean and tall, and not particularly prepossessing in appearance, but about whose manner there was something that was unmistakably aristocratic. It was the Marquis of Bearbrow, one of the largest colliery owners in the world.

Gerald had some faint recollection of him-a very faint one indeed-from having seen him at some of Mr. Harcourt's assemblies. The marquis, however, soon allowed Gerald to see that he was no stranger to him.

"Mr. Lumley, I think I have had the pleasure of meeting you before-at the house of Mr. Harcourt, if I mistake not."

Gerald bowed assent to the great man's remark.

"I came here to-day, in order that I might see you again. Mr. Harcourt told me where you were to be found; but it was not his doing that I sought for you. The fact is, I am extremely interested in your capital coal-cutting machine. I must say an admirable invention. I should like to have it tried in my collieries. It was reading an account of it which made me anxious to make your acquaintance."

Gerald, who in his homely life at Moorfell was losing that familiarity with the great of the land which he once enjoyed, felt somewhat overpowered by the peer's compliments, and at the same time he could not refrain from wondering at the object of his visit. He was not kept long in suspense.

"Mr. Redwood, as I've no doubt you are aware, Mr. Lumley, is the consulting viewer for my collieries in Northumberland. But I want a permanent chief viewer. Mr. Nicholls, who has acted for me for many years, is retiring, and my principal object now is to ask if you could accept the post."

Our hero was fairly overcome. He knew that the Bearbrow collieries were among the largest in the county, and that the chief viewer was a man of no small importance. It seemed impossible that it could really be intended to confer such a position upon himself. He looked up stunned and bewildered.

Lord Bearbrow saw his hesitation, and seemed determined to clench the bargain at once.

"The salary I offer," said he, "is fifteen hundred a-year. That was what Mr. Nicholls had, and what I propose to give now. Should you be willing to accept the post on those terms ?"

Certainly, Lord Bearbrow," said Gerald, "but I have the very gravest doubts as to my ability to fill so important a situation."

"My dear sir, don't trouble yourself on that point. Whatever doubts you may have I have none. I couldn't have any after hearing what Mr. Redwood has to say about you, and seeing that wonderfully ingenious machine of yours. Pray set your mind at rest, and allow me to consider the matter settled."

And the matter was settled accordingly, after further conversation which it is unnecessary to record in these pages.

But this was not all.

"By-the-way," said the peer, when their business was done, "I was empowered to ask you to luncheon at the Station Hotel, to meet a very old friend of yours-Lord Cleverly."

Gerald was startled. It seemed so long, so very long, since Lord Cleverly's name had been uttered in his hearing in this casual manner. He remembered his youthful jealousy of that most good-natured of noblemen, and remembering also that this jealousy was not entirely unrequited, his first impulse was to decline. But second thoughts conquered. He felt a yearning, by no means unnatural in a man who was still young, to see a known face once more. The old life in London-the life of "violent delights," to which there had come so violent an end,seemed suddenly to be opened before his eyes once more, and he could not resist the temptation to see one who was associated with that life; so he went, and saw Lord Cleverly.

I think my reader will be sure that the peer received Gerald with the utmost kindness. To be unkind to anybody was not in Lord Cleverly's nature. Nor was his kindness merely that worthless amiability of which Arthur Lumley furnished so striking an example. There was backbone to it. Lurd Cleverly was a man of honour and high principles, and not merely "a benevolent smile."

It was not only that he might have a chat with our hero about old times, and draw from him in the most delicate manner possible some information as to his present life, that Lord Cleverly had wished to see Gerald. Very early in this history there is a record of a conversation in which the peer told Mr. Harcourt that he would help Gerald some day. That day had now come; and within two hours from the time at which our hero was appointed chief viewer to the Bearbrow collieries, he also found himself consulting viewer to Lord Cleverly's mines, at a salary of five hundred pounds a year.

It seemed almost like a fairy tale. His wonderful good fortune completely bewildered him. As he returned to Moorfell in the dusk of the day, he pondered much over this strange and unexpected change in his affairs. He was a rich man at last. Rich even in the eyes of the people with whom he had once mingled as an equal, but of whom he had seen so little during those years which had gone by since his father's death. To him two thousand a year seemed now a princely fortune. True, it was barely a tenth of the splendid income of the Lumley estates, but it was money earned by the sweat of his brow, and as he walked through the fields from the railway station he owned that such

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money was a hundred times sweeter than would have been the inheritance of his father's estate, if it had ever come to him.

Not towards his own cottage did he, in the first instance, turn his footsteps. It was Nellie of whom he thought most in connection with his good fortune, and it was to her that he first carried the tidings.

His love, like himself, was somewhat overwhelmed. She had never thought of Gerald as a rich man; had never thought of him, indeed, except as a poor man, doomed to work hard all the days of his life for a scanty living. She was almost disappointed when she found that this was not to be. The true woman indeed, who has been preparing herself for the lot of a poor man's wife, must always be disappointed when she finds that the sacrifices and labours to which she had looked forward, are not to be exacted from her.

"Oh, Gerald !" said Nellie, "there will be terrible temptations for both of us now you are so rich."

Gerald smiled in response-a happy, self-confident smile. Somehow the possession of riches seems to be so light a thing to men; whilst to women it is so grave a responsibility.

"With you beside me, darling, I shall not be afraid to encounter temptation. And, Nellie, you do not know how thankful I am that the cares of a poor man's wife will never be yours."

"Ah! but I should have liked it so much, Gerald. I hoped I might make you such a careful housekeeper-though I could never, never be half as good a wife as you deserved."

Again the smile on Gerald's face; but this time not a selfconfident smile.

"My darling, you don't know what you say. You have learned to love a man with more faults than most people. But you will help me, will you not, to overcome the world?"

"Oh, Gerald !" And the bright tender face of his girl love flushed with a blush as warm as the heart which beat beneath her bosom. "And, Gerald, darling," said she, presently, "I am so glad of this on your account, and Mary's."

We have seen our hero in more than one dark hour. We have watched him wrestling with loneliness, anguish, and bereavement; now we see him under other circumstances. Years after, Gerald Lumley used to speak of that evening when he sat beside the doctor's niece, and told her the news which he had brought from Newcastle, as the happiest in his life.

Oh! successful man with no love, no wife, to whom to tell the story of your battle and triumphs, you little know all that you have lost!

CHAPTER XXVII.

GRACE.

GERALD'S new appointments made it necessary that he should leave Moorfell and take up his residence in some more central part of the Northumbrian coal-field. The necessity of finding a suitable residence, as well as the duties which quickly began to crowd upon him in connection with his new posts, occupied much of his time; and for some weeks no one at Moorfell saw much of him. Even Nellie had to be satisfied with brief meetings, at what seemed to be very long intervals.

One day returning to his home, wearied after a long journey to the spot which he had at last fixed upon as his future place of abode, he bethought himself of Grace. He had seen the girl at church on the previous Sunday, and he knew that Mary frequently saw her. Nevertheless, some vague feeling of uneasiness which he was unable to shake off, made him resolve that he would call at her lodgings that night. But when he reached his own house he found that it was useless to do so. Mary met him with a pale and startled face, and told him that Grace had disappeared. It was quite true. The girl had left Moorfell that very day. She had fallen completely under the influence of Peter Dawson, and, lured away by him, had accompanied him to Lumley.

It would perhaps be difficult to say precisely what Peter's object was. He had a vague idea that by taking Grace to Lumley he would gain some sort of hold upon the man whom he hated so intensely. He might make him miserable; he might even bring about another separation from his wife; and in any case it was something to be engaged in a plot. The present writer has heard a distinguished member of the Red fraternity of Europe avow that when all governments had swallowed the socialist formula, and there was nothing left to plot and conspire for, existence would simply become unendurable. In the same way our friend Peter, who in a vague hazy way had been plotting all through his long life, found that he could no longer be happy unless he were mixed with some piece of underhand work.

Little did Sir Arthur Lumley know of the evil which was in store for him. He was very happy just then-happier than he had ever been since his first discovery of the fact that there was a rival claimant to his title and estates. The season was far advanced, and he ought of course to have been in London. But Laura, who knew that the tale of their recent separation had duly found its way to Mayfair and Belgravia, and been commented