age! I thought we had lost him forever."

Nick stirred in his sleep. Carew set the light on the floor. "Thou
fool!" said he, and he fumbled at his pouch; "thou dear-beloved little
fool! To catch the skirts of glory in thine hand, and tread the heels of
happy chance, and yet come back again to ill-starred twilight--and to
me! Ai, lad, I would thou wert my son--mine own, own son; yet Heaven
spare thee father such as I! For, Nick, I love thee. Yet thou dost hate
me like a poison thing. And still I love thee, on my word, and on the
remnant of mine honour!" His voice was husky. "Let thee go?--send thee
back?--eat my sweet and have it too?--how? Nay, nay; thy happy cake
would be my dough--it will not serve." He shook his head, and looked
about to see that all was fast. "Yet, Nick, I say I love thee, on
my soul!"

Slipping to the bedside with stealthy step, he laid a fat little Banbury
cheese and some brown sweet cakes beside Nick's pillow; then came out
hurriedly and barred the door.

The fire in the great hall had gone out, and the room was growing cold.
The table stood by the chimney-side, where supper had been laid, Carew
brought a napkin from the linen-chest, and spread it upon the board.
Then he went to the server's screen and looked behind it, and tried the
latches of the doors; and having thus made sure that all was safe, came
back to the table again, and setting the rush-light there, turned the
contents of his purse into the napkin.

There were both gold and silver. The silver he put back into the purse
again; the gold he counted carefully; and as he counted, laying the
pieces one by one in little heaps upon the cloth, he muttered under his
breath, like a small boy adding up his sums in school, saying over and
over again, "One for me, and one for thee, and two for Cicely Carew. One
for me, and one for thee, and two for Cicely Carew"; and told the coins
off in keeping with the count, so that the last pile was as large as
both the others put together. Then slowly ending, "None for me, and one
for thee, and two for Cicely Carew," he laid the last three nobles
with the rest.

Then he arose and stood a moment listening to the silence in the house.
An old he rat that was gnawing a rind on the hearth looked up, and ran a
little nearer to his hole. "Tsst! come back," said Carew, "I'm no cat!"
and from the sliding panel in the wall took out a buckskin bag tied like
a meal-sack with a string.

As he slipped the knot the