“Oh, no, papa, I never even thought of such a thing.”

“I know it, my darling. I’ve always been your sweetheart, and we’ve lived for one another, and I’m loth to leave you, dear.”

“Oh, father, dearest father, don’t talk of leaving me,” she sobbed.

He smiled sadly, and his feeble hand played with her curls.

“God disposes, my own,” he said. “But there, I must talk while I can. Now, listen. These are nearly my last words, Will.”

His brother started and bent forward to hear his half-whispered words, and he wiped the dew from his sun-browned forehead, and shivered a little, for the chilly near approach of death troubled the hale, hearty-looking man, and gave a troubled look to his florid face.

“When all is over, Will, as soon as you can, take her down to Northwood, and be a father to her. Her aunt always loved her, and she’ll be happy there. Shake hands upon it, Will.”

The thin, white, trembling hand was placed in the fat, heavy palm extended, and rested there for some minutes before Robert Wilton spoke again.

“Everything is set down clearly, Will. The money invested in the bank is hers—one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, strictly tied up. I have seen to that. There, you will do your duty by her, and see that all goes well.”

“Yes.”

“I am satisfied, brother; I exact no oaths. Kate, my child, your uncle will take my place. I leave you in his hands.” Then in a low voice, heard only by her who clung to him, weeping silently, he whispered softly, “And in Thine, O God.”

The next morning the blinds were all down in front of Number 204, Bedford Square, which looked at its gloomiest in the wet fog, with the withered leaves falling fast from the great plane trees; and the iron shutters were half drawn up at the bank in Lothbury, for the old leather-covered chair in the director’s rom was vacant, waiting for a new occupant—the chairman of the Great British and Bengalie Joint Stock Bank was dead.

“As good and true a man as ever breathed,” said the head clerk, shaking his grey head; “and we’ve all lost a friend. I wonder who will marry Miss Kate!”

Chapter Two.

“Morning, Doctor. Hardly expected to find you at 

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