nd because is was possible that, for the "honour"
of sitting at the same table with them he might tide them over a
financial difficulty, was now tended with more than the duty and
watchfulness of a son in the person of a poor journalist, kicked out of
employment for telling the public certain important facts concerning
financial "deals" on the part of persons of influence--a journalist, who
for this very cause was likely never more to be a journalist, but rather
a fighter against bitter storm and stress, for the fair wind of popular
favour,--that being generally the true position of any independent
author who has something new and out of the common to say to the world.
Angus Reay, working steadily and hopefully on his gradually diminishing
little stock of money, with all his energies bent on cutting a diamond
of success out of the savagely hard rock of human circumstance, was more
filial in his respect and thought for Helmsley than either of Helmsley's
own sons had been; while his character was as far above the characters
of those two ne'er-do-weel sprouts of their mother's treachery as light
is above darkness. And the multi-millionaire was well content to rest in
the little cottage where he had found a real home, watching the quiet
course of events,--and waiting--waiting for something which he found
himself disposed to expect--a something to which he could not give a
name.

There was quite a little rejoicing in the village of Weircombe when it
was known he had returned from his brief wanderings, and there was also
a good deal of commiseration expressed for him when it was known that he
was somewhat weakened in physical health by his efforts to find more
paying work. Many of the children with whom he was a favourite came up
to see him, bringing little knots of flowers, or curious trophies of
weed and shells from the seashore--and now that the weather was settled
fine and warm, he became accustomed to sit in his chair outside the
cottage door in the garden, with the old sweetbriar bush shedding
perfume around him, and a clambering rose breaking into voluptuous
creamy pink blossom above his head. Here he would pursue his occupation
of basket-making, and most of the villagers made it their habit to pass
up and down at least once or twice a day in their turns, to see how he
fared, or, as they themselves expressed it, "to keep old David going."
His frail bent figure, his thin, intellectual face, with its composed
expression