Kitty had fallen deeply in love with Vandeloup, so as he told her he loved her in return, she thought that some day they would get married.  But nothing was farther from M. Vandeloup’s thoughts than marriage, even with Kitty, for he knew how foolish it would be for him to marry before making a position.

‘I don’t want a wife to drag me back,’ he said to himself one day when Kitty had hinted at matrimony; ’when I am wealthy it will be time enough to think of marriage, but it will be long before I am rich, and can I wait for Bebe all that time?  Alas!  I do not think so.’

The fact was, the young man was very liberal in his ideas, and infinitely preferred a mistress to a wife.  He had not any evil designs towards Kitty, but her bright manner and charming face pleased him, and he simply enjoyed the hours as they passed.  She idolised him, and Gaston, who was accustomed to be petted and caressed by women, accepted all her affection as his due.  Curiously enough, Madame Midas, lynx-eyed as she was, never suspected the true state of affairs.  Vandeloup had told Kitty that no one was to know of their love for one another, and though Kitty was dying to tell Madame about it, yet she kept silent at his request, and acted so indifferently towards him when under Mrs Villiers’ eye, that any doubts that lady had about the fascinations of her clerk soon vanished.

As to M. Vandeloup, the situation was an old one for him accustomed as he had been to carry on with guilty wives under the very noses of unsuspecting husbands, and on this occasion he acted admirably.  He was very friendly with Kitty in public—­evidently looking upon her as a mere child, although he made no difference in his manner.  And this innocent intrigue gave a piquant flavour to his otherwise dull life.

Meanwhile, the Devil’s Lead was still undiscovered, many people declaring it was a myth, and that such a lead had never existed.  Three people, however, had a firm belief in its existence, and were certain it would be found some day—­this trio being McIntosh, Madame Midas, and Slivers.

The Pactolus claim was a sort of Naboth’s vineyard to Slivers, who, in company with Billy, used to sit in his dingy little office and grind his teeth as he thought of all the wealth lying beneath those green fields.  He had once even gone so far as to offer to buy a share in the claim from Madame Midas, but had been promptly refused by that lady—­a circumstance which by no means added to his love for her.

Still the Devil’s Lead was not found, and people were beginning to disbelieve in its existence, when suddenly indications appeared which showed that it was near at hand.  Nuggets, some large, some small, began to be constantly discovered, and every day news was brought into Ballarat about the turning-up of a thirty-ounce or a twenty-ounce nugget in the Pactolus, when, to crown all, the news came and ran like wildfire through the city that a three hundred ounce nugget had been unearthed.