men obtained an option on this mine for three months from Von Brent.
Kenyon's educated eye had told him that the white mineral they were
placing on the dump at the mouth of the mine was even more valuable than
the mica for which they were mining.

Kenyon was scrupulously honest--a quality somewhat at a discount in the
mining business--and it seemed to him hardly the fair thing that he
should take advantage of the ignorance of Von Brent regarding the mineral
on the dump. Wentworth had some trouble in overcoming his friend's
scruples. He claimed that knowledge always had to be paid for, in law,
medicine, or mineralogy, and therefore that they were perfectly justified
in profiting by their superior wisdom. So it came about that the young
men took to England with them a three months' option on the mine.

Wentworth had been walking about all morning like a lost spirit
apparently seeking what was not. 'It can't be,' he said to himself. No;
the thought was too horrible, and he dismissed it from his mind, merely
conjecturing that perhaps she was not an early riser, which was indeed
the case. No one who works on a morning newspaper ever takes advantage of
the lark's example.

'Well, Kenyon,' said Wentworth 'you look as if you were writing a poem,
or doing something that required deep mental agony.'

'The writing of poems, my dear Wentworth, I leave to you. I am doing
something infinitely more practical--something that you ought to be at.
I am thinking what we are to do with our mica-mine when we get it over
to London.'

'Oh, "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,"' cried Wentworth