Solon Talbot went home in high spirits. It was only recently that he had become aware of the great value of the Golden Hope shares. It had come to him as an agreeable surprise.
"With what I was worth before," he soliloquized, "I may now rate myself at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That is very good—for a beginning. I can afford to buy the house in Forty-Seventh Street, for I shall still have a hundred thousand dollars over, and in five years I mean to make it half a million."
He paced up and down his library in a state of joyous excitement. No thought of giving his sister-in-law her rightful due entered his mind.
"How can she find out?" he reflected. "Old Mr. Doane never told any of us of his mining shares. I presume he looked upon them as rather a risky investment. It has proved to be a splendid speculation, but it was rather a lucky accident than a shrewd purchase."
"'Mark!' exclaimed Talbot. What brings you here!"—[Page 303.]
Mark Mason's Victory.
It was after breakfast on the morning succeeding the sale of stock. Mr. Talbot was preparing to go over to the house which he proposed to purchase for a last examination before making up his mind, when the servant entered the library.
"There is a boy down-stairs wishes to see you, Mr. Talbot," he said.
"Perhaps a boy from Crane & Lawton," he reflected. "Show him up."