and self-indulgence to the devil!  The decision rested in Richard’s own hands, he knew.  Should he blast this young life in the bud, in revenge for acts for which he was in no way accountable, and which were already being so bitterly expiated?  The apprehension that Solomon might even yet be found alive perhaps alone prevented Richard from resolving finally to molest Harry and her son no further.  If his victim should have been rescued, his enmity would have doubtless blazed forth afresh against them as inextinguishable as ever, but in the mean time it smouldered, and was dying out for want of fuel.  If he had no penitence with respect to the terrible retribution he had already wrought, the idea of it disturbed him.  If he had no scruples, he had pangs:  when all was over—­in a day or two, for even so strong a man as Solomon could scarcely hold out longer—­he would doubtless cease to be troubled with them; when he was once dead Richard did not fear his ghost; but the thought of this perishing wretch at present haunted him.  He was still not far from Gethin, and its neighborhood was likely to encourage such unpleasant feelings.  He had only executed a righteous judgment, since there was no law to right him; but even a judge would avoid the vicinity of a gallows on which hangs a man on whom he had passed sentence.

He would go into Midlandshire—­where he was now supposed to be—­until the affair had blown over.  That watching and waiting for the Thing to be discovered would, he foresaw, be disagreeable, nervous work.  And when it happened, how full the newspapers would be of it!  How Solomon got to the place where he would be found would be as much a matter of marvel as the object of his going there.  If the copper lode—­the existence of which Richard did not doubt—­were discovered, as it most likely would be when the mine became the haunt of the curious and the morbid, it was only too probable that public attention would be drawn to the owner.  The identification of Robert Balfour with the visitor who had visited Turlock might then be established, whence would rise suspicion, and perhaps discovery.  Richard had no terrors upon his own account, but he was solicitous to spare his mother this new shame.  He had been hitherto guiltless in her eyes, or, when blameworthy, the victim of circumstances; but could her love for him survive the knowledge that he was a murderer?  But why encourage these morbid apprehensions?  Was it not just as likely that the Thing would never be discovered at all?  Once set upon a wrong scent, as folks already were, since the papers had suggested the man was drowned, why should they ever hit upon the right one?  Wheal Danes had not been explored for half a century.  Why should not Solomon’s bones lie there till the judgment-day?

At this point in his reflections the door opened—­he was taking his breakfast in a private sitting-room—­and admitted, as he thought, the waiter.  Richard stood in such profound thought that it was almost stupor, with his arms upon the mantel-piece, and his head resting on his hands.  He did not change his posture; but when the door closed, and there was silence in place of the expected clatter of the breakfast things, he turned about, and beheld Harry standing before him—­in deep black, and, as it seemed to him, in widow’s weeds!