en a very unnecessary journey away from our friends, and we are
suffering for it! We must now be very good; we must stay at home and
keep quiet!"

Helmsley looked from one to the other questioningly.

"Do you think I'm ill?" he asked. "I'm not, really! I feel very well."

"That's all right, David, dear!" said Mary, patting his hand. "But you
_are_ tired--you know you are!"

His eyes rested on her fondly.

"Yes, I'm tired," he confessed. "But that's nothing." He waited a
minute, looking at them all. "That's nothing! Is it, Mr. Bunce?"

"When we are young it is nothing," replied Mr. Bunce cautiously. "But
when we are old, we must be careful!"

Helmsley smiled.

"Shake hands, Bunce!" he said, suiting the action to the word. "I'll
obey your orders, never fear! I'll sit quiet!"

And he showed so much cheerfulness, and chatted with them all so
brightly, that, for the time, anxiety was dispelled. Mr. Bunce took his
departure promptly, only pausing at the garden gate to give a hint to
Angus Reay.

"He will require the greatest care. Don't alarm Miss Deane--but his
heart was always weak, and it has grown perceptibly weaker. He needs
complete repose."

Angus returned to the cottage somewhat depressed after this, and from
that moment Helmsley found himself surrounded with evidences of tender
forethought for his comfort such as no rich man could ever obtain for
mere cash payment. The finest medical skill and the best trained nursing
are, we know, to be had for money,--but the soothing touch of love,--the
wordless sympathy which manifests itself in all the looks and movements
of those by whom a life is really and truly held precious--these are
neither to be bought nor sold. And David Helmsley in his assumed
character of a man too old and too poor to have any so-called "useful"
friends--a mere wayfarer on the road apparently without a home, or any
prospect of obtaining one,--had, by the simplest, yet strangest chance
in the world, found an affection such as he had never in his most
successful and most brilliant days been able to win. He upon whom the
society women of London and Paris had looked with greedy and speculative
eyes, wondering how much they could manage to get out of him, was now
being cared for by one simple-hearted sincere woman, who had no other
motive for her affectionate solicitude save gentlest compassion and
kindness;--he whom crafty kings had invited to dine with them because of
his enormous wealth, a