uick succession by the band, created a vague impression of
confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the
host and entertainer of the assembled guests, watched the brilliant
scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he
knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,--a touch
of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger in his own
home.

"I feel," he mused, "like some very poor old fellow asked in by chance
for a few minutes, just to see the fun!"

He smiled,--yet was unable to banish his depression. The bare fact of
the worthlessness of wealth was all at once borne in upon him with
overpowering weight. This magnificent house which his hard earnings had
purchased,--this ballroom with its painted panels and sculptured
friezes, crowded just now with kaleidoscope pictures of men and women
whirling round and round in a maze of music and movement,--the thousand
precious and costly things he had gathered about him in his journey
through life,--must all pass out of his possession in a few brief years,
and there was not a soul who loved him or whom he loved, to inherit them
or value them for his sake. A few brief years! And then--darkness. The
lights gone out,--the music silenced--the dancing done! And the love
that he had dreamed of when he was a boy--love, strong and great and
divine enough to outlive death--where was it? A sudden sigh escaped
him----

"_Dear_ Mr. Helmsley, you look so _very_ tired!" said a woman's purring
voice at his ear. "_Do_ go and rest in your own room for a few minutes
before supper! You have been so kind!--Lucy is quite touched and
overwhelmed by _all_ your goodness to her,--no _lover_ could do more for
a girl, I'm _sure_! But really you _must_ spare yourself! What _should_
we do without you!"

"What indeed!" he replied, somewhat drily, as he looked down at the
speaker, a cumbrous matron attired in an over-frilled and over-flounced
costume of pale grey, which delicate Quakerish colour rather painfully
intensified the mottled purplish-red of her face. "But I am not at all
tired, Mrs. Sorrel, I assure you! Don't trouble yourself about me--I'm
very well."

"_Are_ you?" And Mrs. Sorrel looked volumes of tenderest insincerity.
"Ah! But you know we _old_ people _must_ be careful! Young folks can do
anything and everything--but _we_, at _our_ age, need to be
_over_-particular!"

"_You_ shouldn't call yourself old, Mrs.