to excite suspicion.

"It's all right, policeman," he answered, quickly, thrusting some money
into the constable's hand.

Then, breaking from him, the Father hurried towards the bench, bitterly
vexed at the interruption. When he reached it nothing was there.
Guildea's experience had been almost exactly repeated and, filled with
unreasonable disappointment, the Father returned to the house, entered
it, shut the door and hastened up the narrow stairway into the library.

On the hearthrug, close to the fire, he found Guildea lying with his
head lolled against the armchair from which he had recently risen. There
was a shocking expression of terror on his convulsed face. On examining
him the Father found that he was dead.

The doctor, who was called in, said that the cause of death was failure
of the heart.

When Father Murchison was told this, he murmured:

"Failure of the heart! It was that then!"

He turned to the doctor and said:

"Could it have been prevented?"

The doctor drew on his gloves and answered:

"Possibly, if it had been taken in time. Weakness of the heart requires
a great deal of care. The Professor was too much absorbed in his work.
He should have lived very differently."

The Father nodded.

"Yes, yes," he said, sadly.

THE LADY AND THE BEGGAR.

THE LADY AND THE BEGGAR.

Nothing in life is more rare than the conversion of a person who is
"close" about money into one generous, open-handed and lavish. The
sparrow will sooner become the peacock than the miser the spendthrift.
And if this is so, if such a transformation seldom occurs in life, it is
even more unusual for a man or woman to leave behind in dying a
manifesto which contradicts in set terms the obvious and universally
recognised tendency of their whole existence. Naturally, therefore, the
provisions of Mrs. Errington's will surprised the world. Old gentlemen
in Clubs stared upon the number of the Illustrated London News which
announced the disposal of her money as they might have stared upon the
head of Medusa. The fidgety seemed turned to stone as they read. The
thoughtless gaped. As for the thoughtful, this will drove them to deep
meditation, and set them walking in a maze of surmises, from which they
found no outlet. One or two, religiously inclined, recalled that saying
concerning the rich individual and the passage of a camel through a
needle's eye. Possibly it had come home to Mrs. Errington upon her
death-b