down-town, but it excites him too much and he is apt to die away."

"Die away?"

"Yes, sir; the attacks come on him at any time, and so we let him live on as he wants to and no one sees him. He cannot bear strangers, but he is not insane, sir. One trouble is, he knows more than his head can hold—he studies too much." She said this very tenderly and her voice trembled a little as she finished and turned her face to work nervously.

"You have not told me who he is."

"I do not know, sir," and then she added: "He was a baby when I came, and I have done my best by him." She did not meet his eyes. Her suffering and embarrassment touched Edward.

"I will read the papers," he said, gently; "they will tell me all." Taking this as a dismissal the woman withdrew.

CHAPTER VI.

"WHO SAYS THERE CAN BE A 'TOO LATE' FOR THE IMMORTAL MIND?"

Something like fear, a superstitious fear, arose in Edwards' heart as he turned down the lid of the old-fashioned desk in the little room upstairs and saw the few papers pigeon-holed there with lawyer-like precision. On the top lay a long envelope sealed and bearing his name. His hand shook as he held it and studied the chirography. The moment was one to which he had looked forward for a lifetime and should contain the explanation of the singular mystery that had environed him from infancy.

As he held the letter, hesitating over the final act, his life passed in review as, it is said, do the lives of drowning persons. The thought that Edward Morgan was dying came in that connection. The orphan, the lonely college boy, the wandering youth, the bohemian of a dozen continental capitals, the musician and half-way metaphysicist and theosophist, the unformed man of an unformed age, new sphere, one of quick, earnest, feverish action, the new man, was to spring armed, or hampered by—what? At that moment, by a strange revulsion, the life that he had worn so hardly, so bitterly, even its sadness seemed dear and beautiful. After all it had been a life of ease and many scenes. It had no responsibilities—now it would pass! He tore open the envelope impatiently and read:

CONTENTS

"Edward Morgan—Sir: When this letter comes to your knowledge you will have been acquainted with the fact that my will has made you heir to all my 

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