he had seen the tall figure of Tom
o' the Gleam approaching his bedside at the "Trusty Man," with the
little "surprise" gift he had so stealthily laid upon his pillow,--and
it was difficult to realise or to believe that the warm, impulsive heart
had ceased to beat, and that all that splendid manhood was now but
lifeless clay. He tried not to see the horribly haunting vision of the
murdered Wrotham, with that terrible gash in his throat, and the blood
pouring from it,--he strove to forget the pitiful picture of the little
dead "Kiddie" in the arms of its maddened and broken-hearted father--but
the impression was too recent and too ghastly for forgetfulness.

"And yet with it all," he mused, "Tom o' the Gleam had what I have never
possessed--love! And perhaps it is better to die--even in the awful way
he died--in the very strength and frenzy of love--rather than live
loveless!"

Here Charlie heaved a small sigh, and nestled a soft silky head close
against his breast. "I love you!" the little creature seemed to say--"I
am only a dog--but I want to comfort you if I can!" And he
murmured--"Poor Charlie! Poor wee Charlie!" and, patting the flossy coat
of his foundling, was conscious of a certain consolation in the mere
companionship of an animal that trusted to him for protection.

Presently he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His brain was somewhat
confused, and scraps of old songs and verses he had known in boyhood,
were jumbled together without cause or sequence, varying in their turn
with the events of his business, his financial "deals" and the general
results of his life's work. He remembered quite suddenly and for no
particular reason, a battle he had engaged in with certain directors of
a company who had attempted to "better" him in a particularly important
international trade transaction, and he recalled his own sweeping
victory over them with a curious sense of disgust. What did it
matter--now?--whether he had so many extra millions, or so many more
degrees of power? Certain lines of Tennyson's seemed to contain greater
truths than all the money-markets of the world could supply:--

"O let the solid earth
Not fail beneath my feet,
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet--
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day!

"Let the sweet heavens endure
Not close and darken above me,
Before I am quite, quite sure