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matters that he must attend to) bade me follow him immediately to
the office.

Once there, he sought no longer to dissemble his concern, walking
to and fro in the room with a contorted face, and passing his hand
repeatedly upon his brow.

"We have some business," he began at last; and there broke off,
declared we must have wine, and sent for a magnum of the best.
This was extremely foreign to his habitudes; and what was still
more so, when the wine had come, he gulped down one glass upon
another like a man careless of appearances. But the drink steadied
him.

"You will scarce be surprised, Mackellar," says he, "when I tell
you that my brother - whose safety we are all rejoiced to learn -
stands in some need of money."

I told him I had misdoubted as much; but the time was not very
fortunate, as the stock was low.

"Not mine," said he. "There is the money for the mortgage."

I reminded him it was Mrs. Henry's.

"I will be answerable to my wife," he cried violently.

"And then," said I, "there is the mortgage."

"I know," said he; "it is on that I would consult you."

I showed him how unfortunate a time it was to divert this money
from its destination; and how, by so doing, we must lose the profit
of our past economies, and plunge back the estate into the mire. I
even took the liberty to plead with him; and when he still opposed
me with a shake of the head and a bitter dogged smile, my zeal
quite carried me beyond my place. "This is midsummer madness,"
cried I; "and I for one will be no party to it."

"You speak as though I did it for my pleasure," says he. "But I
have a child now; and, besides, I love order; and to say the honest
truth, Mackellar, I had begun to take a pride in the estates." He
gloomed for a moment. "But what would you have?" he went on.
"Nothing is mine, nothing. This day's news has knocked the bottom
out of my life. I have only the name and the shadow of things -
only the shadow; there is no substance in my rights."

"They will prove substantial enough before a court," said I.

He looked at me with a burning eye, and seemed to repress the word
upon his lips; and I repented what I had said, for I saw that while
he spoke of the estate he had still a side-thought to his marriage.
And then, of a sudden, he twitched the letter from his pocket,
where it lay all crumpled, smoothed it violently on the table, and
read these words to me with a trembling tongue: "'My dear Jacob' -
This is how he begins!" cries he - "'My dear Jacob, I once called
you so, you may remember; and you have now done the business, and
flung my heels as high as Criffel.' What do you think of that,
Mackellar," says he, "from an only brother? I declare to God I
liked him very well; I was always staunch to him; and this is how
he writes! But I will not sit down under the imputation" - walking
to and fro - "I am as good as he; I am a better man than he, I call
on God to prove it! I cannot give him all the monstrous sum he

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