Busy men, whose views are all external, are even more apt than others to miss the knowledge of their own minds.  This man, to whom everything was business, had taken for granted he did not actually love Grace Hope.  Why, she was another man’s child.  But now he had lost her forever, he found he had mistaken his own feelings.  He looked round his gloomy horizon and realized too late that he did love her; it was not a great and penetrating love like William Hope’s; he was incapable of such a sentiment; but what affection he had to bestow, he had given to this sweet creature.  His house was dark without her; he was desolate and alone, and, horrible to think of, the instrument of her assassination.  This thought drove him to frenzy, and his frenzy took two forms, furious excitement and gloomy despair; this was now his life by night and day, for sleep deserted him.  At the mine his measures were all wise, but his manner very wild; the very miners whispered amongst themselves that he was going mad.  At home, on the contrary, he was gloomy, with sullen despair.  He was in this latter condition the evening after the explosion, when a visitor was announced.  Thinking it was some one from the mine, he said, faintly, “Admit him,” and then his despondent head dropped on his breast; indeed, he was in a sort of lethargy, worn out with his labors, his remorse and his sleeplessness.

In that condition his ear was suddenly jarred by a hard, metallic voice, whose tone was somehow opposed to all the voices with which goodness and humanity have ever spoken.

“Well, governor, here’s a slice of luck.”

Bartley shivered.  “Is that the devil speaking to me?” he muttered, without looking up.

“No,” said Monckton, jauntily, “only one of his servants, and your best friend.”

“My friend,” said Bartley, turning his chair and looking at him with a sort of dull wonder.

“Ay,” said Monckton, “your friend; the man that found you brains and resolution, and took you out of the hole, and put Hope and his daughter in it instead; no, not his daughter, she did that for us, she was so clever.”

“Yes,” said Bartley, wildly, “it was you who made me an assassin.  But for you, I should only have been a knave; now I am a murderer—­thanks to you.”

“Come, governor,” said Monckton, “no use looking at one side of the picture.  You tried other things first.  You made him liberal offers, you know; but he would have war to the knife, and he has got it.  He is buried at the bottom of that shaft.”

“God forbid!”

“And you are all right.”

“I am in hell,” shrieked Bartley.

“Well, come out of it,” said Monckton, “and let’s talk sense.  I—­I read the news at Derby, just as I was starting for London.  I have been as near the mine as I thought safe.  They seem to be very busy clearing out both shafts—­two steam-engines, constant relays of workmen.  Who has got the job in hand?”