hing element. It was
work for the helpless dead, work for that erring man but noble soul
who had been his loyal friend. As Sir Adrian tied up each bag of gold
and labelled it with the name of some unknown creditor who had trusted
Jack, dimly the thought occurred that it would stand material proof,
call for recognition that this Captain Smith, who had died the death
of a felon, had been a true man even in his own chosen lawless path.

On the table, amid the papers and books, a heap of gold pieces yet
untold, remainder of his allotted day's task, awaited still his
ministering hand. But he was tired. It was the dreamy hour of the day
when the shadows grow long, the shafts of light level; and Sir Adrian
sat at his open window, gazing at the distant view of Pulwick, while
his thoughts wandered into the future, immediate and distant. With the
self-detachment of his nature these thoughts all bore upon the future
of the woman whom he pictured to himself lying behind those sunlit
windows yonder, framed by the verdure of leafy June, gathering slowly
back her broken strength for the long life stretching before her.

Unlike the musings which in the lonely days of old had ever drifted
irresistibly towards the past and gathered round the image of the
dead, all the power of his mind was now fixed upon what was to come,
upon the child, still dearer than the mother, who had all her life to
live. What would she do? What could _he_ do for her, now that she
required his helping hand no more? Life was full of sorrow past and
present; and in the future there lurked no promise of better things.
The mind of man is always fain, even in its darkest hour, to take
flight into some distant realm of hope. To those whom life has utterly
betrayed there is always the hope of approaching death--but this,
even, reason denied to him. He was so strong; illness had never taken
hold of him; he came from such long-lived stock! He might almost
outlive her, might for ever stand as the one ineluctable check upon
her peace of mind. And his melancholy reflections came circling back
to their first starting-point--that barren rock of misery in a vast
sea of despondency--there was nothing to be done.

The barriers raised between them, on his side partly by the poisonous
words of his brother, partly by the phantom of that old love of which
the new had at first been but an eluding reflex, and on hers, by the
chilly disillusion which had fallen so soon upon her ardent