eeing at a glance how the land lay, took
a candle to the box-room, caught up a travelling bag belonging to
Forsyth, and brought it down to him just as he was going to call Josiah
to find it for him.

It was not long before he got some things into it, and was ready to
start. A grip of the hand from each of his friends and he was gone.

What a bad time he had during that short journey; feverishly impatient,
and yet dreading to get to the end of it. It was an express train, and
he got to London in an hour, and was just in time for another on the
short line to his home. So he reached Holly Lodge by eleven. Before he
could ring the door opened. Trix was listening for the wheels, and ran
to let him in. She had been crying, but was very quiet.

"He is alive, but cannot see or hear," she said. "Come."

His mother was there, and two doctors, who looked very grave. One soon
left, but the other, who was the regular medical attendant and a friend,
remained, not, as he plainly said, that he could do anything for the
sick man, who was dying. And in the course of the night he passed away
without regaining consciousness.

But there is no good in dwelling upon that, or on the gloom of the next
few weeks. Poor Mr Forsyth had a heart disease, and when the Great
Transit Bank came to final smash, the agitation killed him then and
there.

For he was quite ruined. It was not only the money he had invested in
the bank which was gone, but, as a large shareholder, he was responsible
for the enormous sums due to those who had dealt with the bank.

Harry thought at first that they were penniless, and wondered almost in
despair how he should be able to support his mother and sister. For he
had learned no trade, he was not a skilled artisan, and mere manual
labour and clerk-work are, he knew, very poorly paid.

But when Mrs Forsyth had recovered sufficiently from the first shock of
her grief to grapple with the cares of every-day life, she showed him
that it was not so bad as he had feared.

"There is my five thousand pounds," she said--"my very own, which I had
before marriage, and which is secured to me. Two hundred and fifty
pounds a year I get from it, and it has always been a little pocket-
money which I had, without going to your dear father for every penny.
And now we must manage to live upon it."

Of course they had to go into a very small house, and could not take the
whole of that. And Harry did not go back to Hart