Boston Copper to-day was quoted at L5 10S 6d, and by paying a premium of twelve shillings and sixpence per share, they were entitled to buy Boston Copper shares any time within the next three months at a price of L6 3s.  Supposing therefore (as Mr. Taynton on very good authority had supposed) that Boston Copper, a rapidly improving company, rose a couple of points within the next three months, and so stood at L7 10S 6d; he had the right of exercising his option and buying them at L6 3S thus making L1 7S 6d per share.  But a higher rise than this was confidently expected, and Taynton, though not really of an over sanguine disposition, certainly hoped to make good the greater part if not all of their somewhat large defalcations.  He had bought an option of 20,000 shares, the option of which cost (or would cost at the end of those months) rather over L10,000.  In other words, the moment that the shares rose to a price higher than L6 3s, all further appreciation was pure gain.  If they did not rise so high, he would of course not exercise the option, and sacrifice the money.

That was certainly a very unpleasant thing to contemplate, but it had been more unpleasant when, so far as he knew, Morris was on the verge of matrimony, and would then step into the management of his own affairs.  But bad though it all was, the situation had certainly been immensely ameliorated this evening, since on the one hand his partner had, it was not unreasonable to hope, said to Madge’s father things about Morris that made his marriage with Madge exceedingly unlikely, while on the other hand, even if it happened, his affairs, according to his own wish, would remain in Mr. Taynton’s hands with the same completeness as heretofore.  It would, of course, be necessary to pay him his income, and though this would be a great strain on the finances of the two partners, it was manageable.  Besides (Mr. Taynton sincerely hoped that this would not be necessary) the money which was Mrs. Assheton’s for her lifetime was in his hands also, so if the worst came to the worst—­

Now the composition and nature of the extraordinary animal called man is so unexpected and unlikely that any analysis of Mr. Taynton’s character may seem almost grotesque.  It is a fact nevertheless that his was a nature capable of great things, it is also a fact that he had long ago been deeply and bitterly contrite for the original dishonesty of using the money of his client.  But by aid of those strange perversities of nature, he had by this time honestly and sincerely got to regard all their subsequent employments of it merely as efforts on his part to make right an original wrong.  He wanted to repair his fault, and it seemed to him that to commit it again was the only means at his disposal for doing so.  A strain, too, of Puritan piety was bound up in the constitution of his soul, and in private life he exercised high morality, and was also kind and charitable.  He belonged to guilds and societies that had as their