"She understands now if she never did before," Huntington reiterated.
"She felt her responsibility for your lonely years, and in trying to
atone made matters worse."

"It is not her place to protect me," Hamlen continued with conviction.
"Take your own simile, with which you try to ease my sense of shame:
even though the waters are not to be blamed, what do people do with
them? Do they let them continue on their path of destruction? No, dear
friend, your arguments are kindly meant, but untenable. I intend to put
those waters where they will do no further harm."

Huntington's face set in determined lines. "So you will dare to assume
the prerogatives of man and God?" he demanded sternly.

Hamlen had never seen Huntington in this mood, and his eyes shifted
uneasily as they met the unflinching gaze of his friend.

"There will be no scandal, Huntington," he said quietly; "I shall not
thus repay your royal hospitality. There are some matters I must turn
over to you, and as my friend I know you will accept them. Then I will
grasp your hand for the last time, thank you from the bottom of my heart
for giving me back the life I had abandoned, and pass on,--whither, it
concerns myself alone."

"What are the matters you have in mind?" Huntington asked, hoping that
some word of Hamlen's might give him inspiration.

"First, as to my property," Hamlen replied with returning confidence as
his friend showed willingness to listen. "Here is my will." He drew a
folded sheet from his pocket, on which he had written perhaps twenty
lines. "Please look it over, and tell me if it is legally drawn when the
necessary signatures are added."

Huntington took the paper, with difficulty focusing his mind upon the
written words.

"Yes," he said, looking up at length; "this document is wonderfully
simple and direct in its statements. The only possible attack upon it
would be to raise an issue as to your mental status at the time you drew
it up."

"Could any one question that?"

"Your later actions will determine," Huntington said significantly.

Hamlen laughed nervously. "Fortunately there is no one left who would
have any interest to contest.--As I told you, the bulk of my property is
now in liquid form on deposit in New York, which simplifies your work as
executor. That, you see, I want to give to Harvard."

He paused for a moment and became meditative. "How little I thought, six
months ago, that I should become a benefactor of the