ether apart from the Barrow moneys, and that, at my
death, will be yours."

"I don't want to hear about it!" burst out Sara passionately. "It's
hateful even talking of such things."

Patrick smiled, amused and a little touched by youth's lack of worldly
wisdom.

"Don't be a fool, my dear. I shan't die a day sooner for having made
my will--and I shall die a deal more comfortably, knowing that you are
provided for. I promised your mother that, as far as lay in my power,
I would shield you from wrecking your life as she wrecked hers. And
money--a secure little income of her own--is a very good sort of
shield for a women. Four hundred's not enough to satisfy a mercenary
individual, but it's enough to enable a woman to marry for love--and
not for a home!" He spoke with a kind of repressed bitterness, as though
memory had stirred into fresh flame the embers of some burnt-out passion
of regret, and Sara looked at him with suddenly aroused interest.

But apparently Patrick did not sense the question that troubled on her
lips, or, if he did, had no mind to answer it, for he went on in lighter
tones:

"There, that's enough about business for the present. I only wanted
you to know that, whatever happens, you will be all right as far as
bread-and-cheese are concerned."

"I believe you think that's all I should care about!" exclaimed Sara
stormily.

Patrick smiled. He had not been a citizen of the world for over
sixty years without acquiring the grim knowledge that neither intense
happiness nor deep grief suffice to deaden for very long the pinpricks
of material discomfort. But the worldly-wise old man possessed a broad
tolerance for the frailties of human nature, and his smile held
nothing of contempt, but only a whimsical humour touched with kindly
understanding.

"I know you better than that, my dear," he answered quietly. "But I
often think of what I once heard an old working-woman, down in the
village, say. She had just lost her husband, and the rector's wife was
handing out the usual platitudes, and holding forth on the example
of Christian fortitude exhibited by a very wealthy lady in the
neighbourhood, who had also been recently widowed. 'That's all very
well, ma'am,' said my old woman drily, 'but fat sorrow's a deal easier
to bear than lean sorrow.' And though it may sound unromantic, it's the
raw truth--only very few people are sincere enough to acknowledge it."

In the weeks that followed, Patrick seemed to re