ince him that he had
done him a deuce of a good turn in showing up Anne Tresslyn!

In patience the old man had listened to his grandson's tirade, his
ravings, his anathemas. He had heard himself called a traitor. He had
smiled grimly on being described as a satyr! When words and breath at last
failed the stalwart Braden, the old gentleman, looking keenly out from
beneath his shaggy brows, and without the slightest trace of resentment in
his manner, suggested that they leave the matter to Anne.

"If she really wants you, my boy, she'll chuck me and my two-million-
dollar purse out of the window, so to speak, and she'll marry you in spite
of your poverty. If she does that, I'll be satisfied. I'll step down and
out and I'll praise God for his latest miracle. If she looks at it from
the other point of view,--the perfectly safe and secure way, you
understand,--and confirms her allegiance to me, I'll still be exceedingly
happy in the consciousness that I've done you a good turn. I will enter my
extreme old age in the race against your healthy youth. I will proffer my
three or four remaining years to her as against the fifty you may be able
to give her. Go and see her at once. Then come back here to me and tell me
what she says."

And so it was that Braden Thorpe returned, as he had agreed to do, to the
home of the man who had robbed him of his greatest possession,--faith in
woman. He found his grandfather seated in the library, in front of a half-
dead fire. A word, in passing, to describe this remarkable old man. He was
tall and thin, and strangely erect for one of his years. His gaunt, seamed
face was beardless and almost repellent in its severity. In his deep-set,
piercing eyes lurked all the pains of a lifetime. He had been a strong,
robust man; the framework was all that remained of the staunch house in
which his being had dwelt for so long. His hand shook and his knee
rebelled against exertion, but his eye was unwavering, his chin
unflinching. White and sparse was the thatch of hair upon his shrunken
skull, and harsh was the thin voice that came from his straight,
colourless lips. He walked with a cane, and seldom without the patient,
much-berated Wade at his elbow, a prop against the dreaded day when his
legs would go back on him and the brink would appear abruptly out of
nowhere at his very feet. And there were times when he put his hand to his
side and held it there till the look of pain softened about his mouth and