I should want to send for
him?" he said after a moment's silence, and with constraint and
hesitation.

"He is riding so much that it is hard to tell; but, uncle, dear,"
melting and putting her arms about him, "I should not be really
offended, of course, if you were to send for the other doctor. You can,
dear, if you want to. I like him ever so much better myself, since he
took such good care of my Paul."

He laughed uneasily and got up, saying that he was going to see about
the trouble on the boat. He saw that he must have a cleared mind and
steadied nerves with time to think. And he could not think in her
presence, he could only feel her blue eyes on his face and her little
hands clasped around his knee or about his arm. He tried not to look at
her, and hurriedly began buttoning his coat before starting on his cold
way home. In drawing his coat closer, his hand came in contact with the
pearls which he had forgotten. He drew them out and hung them again
around her neck. She thanked him with a smile, but he saw that she
scarcely looked at them, that she was thinking only of her love and her
lover, though she held his hand and walked beside him to the front door.

From it they could see dimly and were able to make out the black bulk of
the boat lying far out in the river beside the island. As he looked at
it a feeling of the worthlessness of all that he owned swept over him,
overwhelming him with despair. All the gold that he had gathered, or
ever could gather, would be worthless yellow dust if he might not use it
to give her comfort or pleasure or happiness. He realized suddenly that
this was everything that his riches had meant to him ever since she had
wound herself around his heart. Money could do little for him; he was
weary and old and sad and had come to feel--as every rich man must come
to feel sooner or later--that for himself his riches meant, after all,
only food and clothes. And now he found himself facing the end of the
sole interest and happiness that he could ever hope to find in life.
Henceforth it would be with the utmost that he could do, as it had been
just now with these pearls. He fully recognized the hopelessness of
trying to win her away from her lover. That had grown plainer with every
gentle word that she had said while they had sat before the fire. And he
knew that this proud young fellow, whose glance had met his like the
crossing of swords, would never allow her to touch a penny of his money