ediscovered right hand was his
signature to a document his lawyer brought him after a consultation.
It was a transfer of twenty thousand pounds in British war bonds, "for
services rendered and other valuable considerations," to his dear
daughter Marie Louise Webling.

When the warrant was handed to her with the bundle of securities,
Marie Louise was puzzled, then shocked as the old man explained with
his still uncertain lips. When she understood, she rejected the gift
with horror. Sir Joseph pleaded with her in a thick speech that had
relapsed to an earlier habit.

"I am theenkink how close I been by dyink. Du bist--zhoo are in my
vwill, of coorse, but a man says, 'I vwill,' and some heirs says, 'You
vwon't yet!' Better I should make sure of somethink."

"But I don't want money, papa--not like this. And I won't have you
speak of wills and such odious things."

"You have been like our own daughter only more obeyink as poor Hedwig.
You should not make me sick by to refuse."

She could only quiet him by accepting the wealth and bringing him the
receipt for its deposit in a safe of her own.

When he was once more able to hoist his massive body to its feet and
to walk to his own door, he said:

"_Mein_--my _Gott_! Look at the calendar once. It is nineteen
seventeen already."

He ceased to be that simple, primitive thing, a sick man; he became
again the financier. She heard of him anew on war-industry boards. She
saw his name on lists of big subscriptions. He began to talk anew of
Nicky, and he spoke with unusual anxiety of U-boats. He hoped that
they would have a bad week. There was no questioning his sincerity in
this.

And one evening he came home in a womanish flurry. He pinched the ear
of Marie Louise and whispered to her:

"Nicky is here in England--safe after the sea voyage. Be a nize girl,
and you shall see him soon now."

CHAPTER IV

The next morning Marie Louise, waking, found her windows opaque with
fog. The gardens she usually looked over, glistening green all winter
through, were gone, and in their place was a vast bale of sooty cotton
packed so tight against the glass that her eyes could not pierce to
the sill.

Marie Louise went down to breakfast in a room like a smoky tunnel
where the lights burned sickly. She was in a murky and suffocating
humor, but Sir Joseph was strangely content for the hour and the air.
He ate with the zest of a boy on a holi-morn, and beckoned her into
his stu