ly," said I, "I have near five hundred pounds laid by in
Scotland, the economies of a hard life. A letter goes by yon ship to
have it lifted. Have so much patience till the return ship comes in, and
it is all yours, upon the same condition you offered to my lord this
morning."

He rose from the table, came forward, took me by the shoulders, and
looked me in the face, smiling.

"And yet you are very fond of money!" said he. "And yet you love money
beyond all things else, except my brother!"

"I fear old age and poverty," said I, "which is another matter."

"I will never quarrel for a name. Call it so," he replied.--"Ah!
Mackellar, Mackellar, if this were done from any love to me, how gladly
would I close upon your offer!"

"And yet," I eagerly answered--"I say it to my shame, but I cannot see
you in this poor place without compunction. It is not my single
thought, nor my first; and yet it's there! I would gladly see you
delivered. I do not offer it in love, and far from that; but, as God
judges me--and I wonder at it too!--quite without enmity."

"Ah!" says he, still holding my shoulders, and now gently shaking me,
"you think of me more than you suppose. 'And I wonder at it too,'" he
added, repeating my expression and, I suppose, something of my voice.
"You are an honest man, and for that cause I spare you."

"Spare me?" I cried.

"Spare you," he repeated, letting me go and turning away. And then,
fronting me once more: "You little know what I would do with it,
Mackellar! Did you think I had swallowed my defeat indeed? Listen: my
life has been a series of unmerited cast-backs. That fool, Prince
Charlie, mismanaged a most promising affair: there fell my first
fortune. In Paris I had my foot once more high up on the ladder: that
time it was an accident; a letter came to the wrong hand, and I was bare
again. A third time I found my opportunity; I built up a place for
myself in India with an infinite patience; and then Clive came, my rajah
was swallowed up, and I escaped out of the convulsion, like another
Aeneas, with Secundra Dass upon my back. Three times I have had my hand
upon the highest station: and I am not yet three-and-forty. I know the
world as few men know it when they come to die--Court and camp, the East
and the West; I know where to go, I see a thousand openings. I am now at
the height of my resources, sound of health, of inordinate ambition.
Well, all this I resign; I care not if I die, and the world