e contents of the brandy decanter on to the tray. I took him in a cab,
a stupefied man, to the bank, and when he left me at the door with my
draft in his pocket, there were tears in his eyes. He wrung my hand and
murmured something incoherent about Lucy.

"For Heaven's sake, don't tell her anything about it," I entreated. "I
love Lucy dearly, as you know; but I don't want to have her weeping on
my door-mat."

I walked back to my rooms with a springing step. So happy was I that I
should have liked to dance down Piccadilly. If the Faculty had not made
their pronouncement, I could have no more turned poor Latimer's earth
from hell to heaven than I could have changed St. Paul's Cathedral into
a bumblebee. The mere possibility of lending him the money would not
have occurred to me.

A man of modest fortune does not go about playing Monte Cristo. He gives
away a few guineas in charity; but he keeps the bulk of his fortune to
himself. The death sentence, I vow, has compensations. It enables a man
to play Monte Cristo or any other avatar of Providence with impunity,
and to-day I have discovered it to be the most fascinating game in the
world.

When Latimer recovers his equilibrium and regards the transaction in the
dry light of reason, he will diagnose a sure symptom of megalomania, and
will pity me in his heart for a poor devil.

I have seen Eleanor Faversham, and she has released me from my
engagement with such grace, dignity, and sweet womanliness that I wonder
how I could have railed at her thousand virtues.

"It's honourable of you to give me this opportunity of breaking it off,
Simon," she said, "but I care enough for you to be willing to take my
chance of illness."

"You do care for me?" I asked.

She raised astonished eyes. "If I didn't, do you suppose I should have
engaged myself to you? If I married you I should swear to cherish you in
sickness and in health. Why won't you let me?"

I was in a difficulty. To say that I was in ill-health and about to
resign my seat in Parliament and a slave to doctor's orders was one
thing; it was another to tell her brutally that I had received my death
warrant. She would have taken it much more to heart than I do.

The announcement would have been a shock. It would have kept the poor
girl awake of nights. She would have been for ever seeing the hand of
Death at my throat. Every time we met she would have noted on my face,
in my gait, infallible signs of my approaching