ld. Take her as a pattern, dear, and
show some self-denial."

"Why not take you, Rich?" he said kindly as he gazed in the sweet
careworn face before him. "There, I won't ask you to have the money.
I'm off; if I stop here longer I shall be acting like a girl. As for
Poynter, if he comes and pesters you--"

"Mr Poynter will not come," said Richmond, drawing herself up proudly.
"He has acted like a coward to us both."

"One moment, Rich," said Hendon eagerly: "do you think--the governor--"

"Has taken money from him? No."

"Thank God!"

"My father, whatever his weakness, is a true gentleman at heart. He
would not do this thing."

Hendon advanced a step to take his sister in his arms, but in his eyes
then she wore so much the aspect of an indignant queen that he raised
her thin white hand to his lips instead, and hurried from the house.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE SURGERY IMP.

Dr Chartley sat in his consulting-room, with a glass jar, retort,
receiver, and spirit-lamp before him. The lamp was on the table, and
made with its shaded light and that of the fire a pleasant glow, which
took off some of the desolation of the bare consulting-room on that
bitter night.

He had been busy over his discovery, and confessed that it was not so
far advanced as he could wish.

"There is a something wanting," he had muttered more than once; and,
wearied at last, he was thinking more seriously than usual of his son,
of Richmond, and of James Poynter.

"It would place her above the reach of want," he said dreamily; "she
would be happy if anything befell me. Yes, money is a power, and we are
now so poor, so poor, that life seems to have become one bitter
struggle, in which I am too weak to engage."

He sighed, and rose, walked into the miserably cold surgery, where Bob
was diligently polishing the front out of the nest of drawers containing
drugs, and having threads of cotton from the ragged duster hanging upon
the broken knobs.

"Good boy--good industrious boy," said the doctor, patting his head
gently, before taking up a little graduated glass, pouring in a small
quantity from a bottle at the top of the shelves, and after turning it
into a medicine glass, he filled up with water and drank it.

Bob took the glass the doctor handed to him, smiling.

"Good for a weary troubled old man, boy," he said, "but it will kill
you. Don't touch--don't touch--don't touch."

He nodded and went back into the consulting-room, to co