was drawing in and
Mary did not reappear, Angus Reay took his departure with Twitt, leaving
Helmsley sitting alone in his chair by the fire. But he did not go
without a parting word--a word which was only a whisper.

"You think you are _sure_, David!" he said--"Sure that she loves me! I
wish you would make doubly, trebly sure!--for it seems much too good to
be true!"

Helmsley smiled, but made no answer.

When he was left alone in the little kitchen to which he was now so
accustomed, he sat for a space gazing into the red embers of the fire,
and thinking deeply. He had attained what he never thought it would be
possible to attain--a love which had been bestowed upon him for himself
alone. He had found what he had judged would be impossible to find--two
hearts which, so far as he personally was concerned, were utterly
uninfluenced by considerations of self-interest. Both Mary Deane and
Angus Reay looked upon him as a poor, frail old man, entirely
defenceless and dependent on the kindness and care of such strangers as
sympathised with his condition. Could they now be suddenly told that he
was the millionaire, David Helmsley, they would certainly never believe
it. And even if they were with difficulty brought to believe it, they
would possibly resent the deception he had practised on them. Sometimes
he asked himself whether it was quite fair or right to so deceive them?
But then,--reviewing his whole life, and seeing how at every step of his
career men, and women too, had flattered him and fawned upon him as well
as fooled him for mere money's sake,--he decided that surely he had the
right at the approaching end of that career to make a fair and free
trial of the world as to whether any thing or any one purely honest
could be found in it.

"For it makes me feel more at peace with God," he said--"to know and to
realise that there _are_ unselfish loving hearts to be found, if only in
the very lowliest walks of life! I,--who have seen Society,--the modern
Juggernaut,--rolling its great wheels recklessly over the hopes and joys
and confidences of thousands of human beings--I, who know that even
kings, who should be above dishonesty, are tainted by their secret
speculations in the money-markets of the world,--surely I may be
permitted to rejoice for my few remaining days in the finding of two
truthful and simple souls, who have no motive for their kindness to
me,--who see nothing in me but age, feebleness and poverty,--and