The days when he and Wilberforce were lads, poor, sad-hearted, all but homeless, returned upon him with their shadows.  It was in those days that his friend formed so lofty an estimate of his exactness in figures and his skill in saving, and thus it had happened that when the engine constructed by Wilberforce began to pay him so past belief, he was really in the perplexity concerning places of deposit which he had expressed to Marten.  Leonhard chanced to be with this young Croesus—­who had begun life by dipping water for invalids at the springs—­when the ten thousand dollars alluded to were paid him by a dealer; and the instant transfer of the money to his hands was one of those off-hand performances which, apparently trivial, in the end search a man to the foundations.

What had become of the money?  Seven thousand dollars were swallowed up in a gulf which never gives back its treasure.  And oh on the verge of that same gulf how the siren had sung!  A chance of clearing five thousand dollars by investing that amount presented itself to Leonhard:  it was one of those investments which will double a man’s money for him within three months, or six months at latest.  The best men of A——­ were in the enterprise, and by going into it Leonhard would reap every sort of advantage.  He might give up teaching music, and confine himself to the studies which as an architect he ought to pursue; and to be known among the A—–­ landers as a young gentleman who had money to invest would secure to him that social position which the music-lessons he gave did no doubt in some quarters embarrass.

It was while buoyed up by his “great expectations,” and flattered by the attentions which strangely enough began to be extended toward him by some of the “best men”—­who also were stockholders in the new sugar-refining process—­that Leonhard took a room at the Granby House, and began to manifest a waning interest in his work as a music-master.

This display of himself, modest though it was, cost money.  Before the letter quoted was written Leonhard had begun to feel a little troubled:  he had been obliged to add two thousand dollars to his original investment, and the thought that possibly there might be a demand for a yet further sum—­for some unforeseen difficulty had arisen in the matter of machinery—­had fixed in his mind a misgiving to which at odd moments he returned with a flutter of spirits amounting almost to panic.

On the promenade he met Miss Ayres.  She stood before the window of a music-dealer’s shop, looking at the photograph of some celebrity—­a tall and not too slightly-formed young lady, attired in a buff suit with brown trimmings, and a brown hat from which a pretty brown feather depended.  On her round cheeks was a healthy glow, deepened perhaps by exercise on that warm afternoon, and a trifle in addition, it may be, by the sound of footsteps advancing.  Yet as Leonhard approached, she, chancing to look around, did not seem surprised that he was so near.  Not that she expected him!  What reason had she for supposing that from his office-window he would see her the instant she turned the corner of Granby street and walked down the avenue fronting the parade-ground?  No reason of course; but this had happened so many times that the meeting of the two somewhere in this vicinity was daily predicted by the wise prophets of the street.