He repaired directly to Jim’s apartment, found him, and said:  “Jim, my heart is broken.  You have stood by me so far, help me now to arrange things so that I can say good-bye to Rose”—­here he broke down and sobbed—­“and then go back to America.”

“Why, old friend,” said Sedgwick, “if you and Rose are all right, what can so upset you?”

“Why, bless my soul, Jim, I’m ruined; my fortune is nearly all gone,” he answered.

Then Sedgwick drew from him all the dismal story.

When he had finished, Sedgwick said:  “Get me that prospectus, Jack:  I want to see it before I make up my mind.”  Jack complied, and Sedgwick read it carefully through.  The statement of the mine, the description of its development, and of the value of the ore, had been prepared by an expert so eminent that he could not afford to sell his name to bolster up a fraud.

When Sedgwick had finished reading he sat in thought for a few minutes, and then said:  “Jack, go and find the man from whom this property was purchased, get all the facts that you can, even if you have to get him drunk; then come to me to-morrow, and by that time we will think something out.  By the way, first run over to Rose, tell her you have been called away on business and may not be home until late, so that she will not expect you.”

Jack left his friend and met Rose in the hall.  She had just come in to visit Grace.  He caught her up as men sometimes do children, kissed her and said gaily:  “Don’t look for me to-night, sweetheart.  I’m going to be engaged until late.”

She twined both her arms around one of his arms and said teasingly:  “Are not you and I engaged, and is not ours a prior engagement?”

“O, yes,” he said, “but this other engagement is with a man.”

“So is mine,” she said.

“And sometimes I think he is not much of a man, either,” said Jack.

“Don’t you dare to slander him,” said Rose.  “I know him better than he knows himself, and I will not permit one word to be breathed against him.”

“He ought to be most proud of so lovely a champion.  He must be the most blessed man of all the earth,” said Jack, looking fondly down upon her.  Then he added:  “Are you very sure that nothing could ever come between his love and you?”

“Why, Jack, how serious you are,” the fair girl said.  “Nothing, nothing, can ever come to break my admiration for him.  Death itself can but suspend life for a little while.  My Jack and myself will be loving each other when this world shall be worn out and be floating in space, as does a dead swan upon a lake.”

Browning bent and kissed her again, said softly
“Amen,” and went out.

The day wore away, and when dinner was announced, Browning had not returned.  Sedgwick went with Grace to the sitting room and remained for a few minutes.  Grace chided him upon being moody, and with all her caressing ways tried to exorcise the evil spirit that was upon him, but with poor success.  Finally he asked her to excuse him, telling her he was absorbed in a little matter not strictly his own, which he would tell her all about after awhile.