of delicate children who have to live half the year on the south coast, to say nothing of my old mother, and—­I was fool enough to be taken in and back Sir Robert’s last little venture, which cost me all I had saved.  So you see I must make a bit before the machine is scrapped, Major.  But I tell you this, that if I can get L5000 together, as I hope to do out of Saharas before I am a month older, for they had to give me a look-in, as I knew too much, I am off to the country, where I was born, to take a farm there.  No more of Messrs. Aylward and Haswell for Thomas Jeffreys.  That’s my bell.  Good-bye, Major, I’ll take the liberty to write you a line sometimes, for I know you won’t give me away.  Good-bye and God bless you, as I am sure He will in the long run,” and stretching out his hand, he took that of the astonished Alan and wrung it warmly.

When he was gone Alan went also, noticing that the clerks, whom some rumour of these events seemed to have reached, eyed him curiously through the glass screens behind which they sat at their desks, as he thought not without regret and a kind of admiration.  Even the magnificent be-medalled porter at the door emerged from the carved teak box where he dwelt and touching his cap asked if he should call a cab.

“No, thank you, Sergeant,” answered Alan, “I will take a bus, and, Sergeant, I think I forgot to give you a present last Xmas.  Will you accept this?—­I wish I could make it more,” and he presented him with ten shillings.

The Sergeant drew himself up and saluted.

“Thank you kindly, Major,” he said.  “I’d rather take that from you than L10 from the other gentlemen.  But, Major, I wish we were out on the West Coast again together.  It’s a stinking, barbarous hole, but not so bad as this ’ere city.”

For once these two had served as comrades, and it was through Alan that the sergeant obtained his present lucrative but somewhat uncongenial post.

He was outside at last.  The massive granite portal vanished behind him in the evening mists, much as a nightmare vanishes.  He, Alan Vernon, who for a year or more had been in bondage, was a free man again.  All his dreams of wealth had departed; indeed if anything, save in experience, he was poorer than when first the shadow of yonder doorway fell upon him.  But at least he was safe, safe.  The deed of partnership which had been as a chain about his neck, was now white ashes; his name was erased from that fearful prospectus of Sahara Limited, wherein millions which someone would provide were spoken of like silver in the days of Solomon, as things of no account.  The bitterest critic could not say that he had made a halfpenny out of the venture, in fact, if trouble came, his voluntary abandonment of the profits due to him must go to his credit.  He had plunged into the icy waters of renunciation and come up clean if naked.  Never since he was a boy could Alan remember feeling so utterly light-hearted and free from anxiety.  Not for a million pounds would he have returned to gather gold in that mausoleum of reputations.  As for the future, he did not in the least care what happened.  There was no one dependent on him, and in this way or in that he could always earn a crust, a nice, honest crust.