went on murmuring to himself--

"As if all the gold in the world could make up for the loss of one
loving heart!"

Mary was silent. She saw that he was greatly agitated, and thought it
better to let him speak out his whole mind rather than suppress his
feelings.

"What can a man do with wealth!" he went on, speaking more to himself
than to her--"He can buy everything that is to be bought, certainly--but
if he has no one to share his goods with him, what then? Eh, Mary? What
then?"

"Why then he'd be a very miserable man, David!" she answered,
smiling--"He'd wish he were poor, with some one to love him!"

He looked at her, and his sunken eyes flashed with quite an eager light.

"That's true!" he said--"He'd wish he were poor with some one to love
him! Mary, you've been so kind to me--promise me one thing!"

"What's that?" and she patted his hand soothingly.

"Just this--if I die on your hands don't let that man Arbroath bury me!
I think my very bones would split at the sound of his rasping voice!"

Mary laughed.

"Don't you worry about that!" she said--"Mr. Arbroath won't have the
chance to bury you, David! Besides, he never takes the burials of the
very poor folk even in his own parishes. He wrote a letter in one of the
countryside papers not very long ago, to complain of the smallness of
the burial fees, and said it wasn't worth his while to bury paupers!"
And she laughed again. "Poor, bitter-hearted man! He must be very
wretched in himself to be so cantankerous to others."

"Well, don't let him bury _me_!" said Helmsley--"That's all I ask. I'd
much rather Twitt dug a hole in the seashore and put my body into it
himself, without any prayers at all, than have a prayer croaked over me
by that clerical raven! Remember that!"

"I'll remember!" And Mary's face beamed with kindly tolerance and
good-humour--"But you're really quite an angry old boy to-day, David! I
never saw you in such a temper!"

Her playful tone brought a smile to his face at last.

"It was that horrible suggestion of money compensation for a child's
life that angered me,"--he said, half apologetically--"The notion that
pounds, shillings and pence could pay for the loss of love, got on my
nerves. Why, love is the only good thing in the world!"

She had been half kneeling by his chair--but she now rose slowly, and
stretched her arms out with a little gesture of sudden weariness.

"Do you think so, David?" and she sighed, almost unconscio