t, and that the gaunt,
unemotional African merchant felt an unwonted heartache as he hailed a
hansom and drove out to his friend's house at Fulham. He and Harston
had been charity schoolboys together, had roughed it together, risen
together, and prospered together. When John Girdlestone was a raw-boned
lad and Harston a chubby-faced urchin, the latter had come to look upon
the other as his champion and guide. There are some minds which are
parasitic in their nature. Alone they have little vitality, but they
love to settle upon some stronger intellect, from which they may borrow
their emotions and conclusions at second-hand. A strong, vigorous brain
collects around it in time many others, whose mental processes are a
feeble imitation of its own. Thus it came to pass that, as the years
rolled on, Harston learned to lean more and more upon his old
school-fellow, grafting many of his stern peculiarities upon his own
simple vacuous nature, until he became a strange parody of the original.
To him Girdlestone was the ideal man, Girdlestone's ways the correct
ways, and Girdlestone's opinions the weightiest of all opinions.
Forty years of this undeviating fidelity must, however he might conceal
it, have made an impression upon the feelings of the elder man.

Harston, by incessant attention to business and extreme parsimony, had
succeeded in founding an export trading concern. In this he had
followed the example of his friend. There was no fear of their
interests ever coming into collision, as his operations were confined to
the Mediterranean. The firm grew and prospered, until Harston began to
be looked upon as a warm man in the City circles. His only child was
Kate, a girl of seventeen. There were no other near relatives, save Dr.
Dimsdale, a prosperous West-end physician. No wonder that Ezra
Girdlestone's active business mind, and perhaps that of his father too,
should speculate as to the disposal of the fortune of the dying man.

Girdlestone pushed open the iron gate and strode down the gravel walk
which led to his friend's house. A bright autumn sun shining out of a
cloudless heaven bathed the green lawn and the many-coloured flower-beds
in its golden light. The air, the leaves, the birds, all spoke of life.
It was hard to think that death was closing its grip upon him who owned
them all. A plump little gentleman in black was just descending the
steps.

"Well, doctor," the merchant asked, "how is your patien