teous and the Christian thing."

"Did I? I'm sure I don't know why I did it."

"Ah--if you'd done it for the love of God, there's no doubt it'd 'ave
been more pleasing to 'im."

"Well, you know I didn't do it for the love--of God."

"You did it for the love of woman? I was right then, after all."

Isaac felt inexpressibly consoled by Keith's cheerful disclaimer of
all credit. His manner did away with the solemnity of the occasion;
but it certainly smoothed for him the painful path of confession.

"Well, yes. If it hadn't been for Miss Harden I don't suppose I should
have done it at all."

He said it very simply; but not all the magnificent consolations of
religion could have given Isaac greater peace. It was a little more
even, the balance of righteousness between him and Keith. He had never
sinned, as Keith had done, after the flesh. Of the deeds done in the
body he would have but a very small account to render at the last.

"And you see, you haven't got anything for it out of _her_."

There was a certain satisfaction in his tone. He saw a mark of the
divine displeasure in Keith's failure to marry the woman he desired.

"And if I could only raise that money--"

He meant it--he meant it. The balance, held in God's hands, hung
steady now.

"How much is it?" asked Keith; for he thought, "Perhaps he's only
holding on to that share for my sake; and if he knew that I would give
it up now, he might really--"

"Four thousand nine with th' interest," said Isaac.

"Do you think, Keith, it would have sold for five?"

"Well, yes, I think it very possibly might."

"Ah!" Isaac turned his face from his son. The sigh expressed a
profound, an infinite repentance.

CHAPTER LXIII

On the twenty-fifth Isaac Rickman lay dead in his villa at Ilford. Two
days after Keith's visit he had been seized by a second and more
terrible paralytic stroke; and from it he did not recover. The wedding
was now indefinitely postponed till such time as Keith could have
succeeded in winding up his father's affairs.

They proved rather less involved than he had expected. Isaac had
escaped dying insolvent. Though a heavy mortgage delivered Rickman's
in the Strand into Pilkington's possession, the City house was not
only sound, as Isaac had said, but in a fairly flourishing condition.
Some blind but wholly salutary instinct had made him hold on to that
humbler and obscurer shop where first his fortunes had been made; and
with its