n Virginia--of the stress and excitement of his
business career--of his extraordinary successes, piled one on the top of
the other--and then of the emptiness of it all!

"I should have been happier and wiser," he said, "if I had lived the
life of a student in some quiet home among the hills--where I should
have seen less of men and learned more of God. But it is too late
now--too late!"

And a curious sorrow and pity moved him for certain men he knew who were
eating up the best time of their lives in a mad struggle for money,
losing everything of real value in their scramble for what was, after
all, so valueless,--sacrificing peace, honour, love, and a quiet mind,
for what in the eternal countings is of no more consideration than the
dust of the highroad. Not what a man _has_, but what he _is_,--this is
the sole concern of Divine Equity. Earthly ideas of justice are in
direct opposition to this law, but the finite can never overbalance the
infinite. We may, if we so please, honour a king as king,--but with God
there are no kings. There are only Souls, "made in His image." And
whosoever defaces that Divine Image, whether he be base-born churl or
crowned potentate, must answer for the wicked deed. How many of us view
our social acquaintances from any higher standard than the extent of
their cash accounts, or the "usefulness" of their influence? Yet the
inexorable Law works silently on,--and day after day, century after
century, shows us the vanity of riches, the fall of pride and power, the
triumph of genius, the immutability of love! And we are still turning
over the well-worn pages of the same old school-book which was set
before Tyre and Sidon, Carthage and Babylon--the same, the very same,
with one saving exception--that a Divine Teacher came to show us how to
spell it and read it aright--and He was crucified! Doubtless were He to
come again and once more try to help us, we should re-enact that
old-time Jewish murder!

Lying quietly in his bed, Helmsley conversed with his inner self, as it
were, reasoning with his own human perplexities and gradually
unravelling them. After all, if his life had been, as he considered,
only a lesson, was it not good for him that he had learned that lesson?
A passing memory of Lucy Sorrel flitted across his brain--and he thought
how singular it was that chance should have brought him into touch with
the very man who would have given her that "rose of love" he desired she
should wear,