The preacher moved aside with a sigh of relief and softly tiptoed out of the room as Stuart took the outstretched hand.

"It's awfully good of you to come up here so soon," he began feebly.

"I've some plans I want you to carry out for me right away. You see I never thought before of the world as a place where there were so many men and women sick and suffering--thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands. These doctors say that every night in New York alone there are half a million people sick or bending over the beds of loved ones who are suffering, and two hundred die every day."

He paused for breath, and the black eyes stared at his friend.

"Jim, I can't die! I haven't lived! I've got to get up from here and do some things I've meant to do--all those sick people--I've got to do something for them. I'm going to build palaces for the lame, the halt, the sick, the blind. I'm going to gather the great men of science from the ends of the earth and set them to work to lift this shadow from the world."

A sudden pain seized and convulsed his frail body and Stuart called the doctors from the next room.

They stood by in helpless sympathy.

"Can't you stop this pain?" the financier gasped in anger. "What are you here for? Am I not able to buy enough morphine to stop this hellish agony?"

His family doctor bent and said:

"Your heart action is too low just now, Mr. Bivens, you can't stand it."

"Well, I can't stand this! Give it to me, I tell you!"

The doctor took a hypodermic syringe, filled it with water and injected it into his arm.

While Stuart watched the pitiful trick, his eye wandered over the magnificent trappings of the room.

"What irony of Fate!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "Not a clod hopper in the field, nor a blacksmith at his anvil who would change places with him now--the poorest negro who sings at his plow is richer."

The sufferer stared and beckoned to Stuart.

Handing him a key which he drew from beneath his pillow he cried:

"Unlock the right-hand top-drawer of that safe, Jim--the door is open.

Hand me those bundles of stocks and bonds and ask those doctors to come in here."

Stuart complied with his request, and Bivens spread the brilliant coloured papers on the white covering of his bed, while the doctors drew near.

"Listen now, gentlemen," he began, still gasping with pain. "You're our greatest living doctors, I'm told. Well, I'm not willing to die, I won't die--do you hear? I'm only forty-nine years old. You see here thirty millions in gilt-edged stocks and bonds. Well, there are three of you, I'll give you ten millions each to take this stone off of my breast that's smothering me and give me five years more of life. My friend Stuart here is witness to this deed of gift--my word is pledged before him and before God--I'll make good. Do you understand? Ten millions each! Can you grasp the meaning, the sweep and power and grandeur of such an offer? Now, gentlemen, do your best for me. Just five years more--well, we won't haggle over terms--give me one year more and I'll not complain!"

The three men of science stood with folded helpless arms and made no effort to keep back the tears. They had seen many men die. It was nothing new--and yet the pity and pathos of this strange appeal found its way to the soul of each. They never envied a millionaire again.

They retired for another consultation. Stuart replaced the papers and put the key in Bivens's outstretched hand.

It was plain that he was sinking rapidly.

"Ask Nan to come here a minute," he said feebly.

Stuart walked to the door and whispered to a servant. When he returned to the bedside, the dying man looked up into his face gratefully.

"You don't know how it helps me to have you near, Jim, old boy. I'm lonely! Nan I guess is ill and broken down. I've lavished millions on her.

I've given her all I possess in my will, but somehow we never found happiness. If I could only have been sure of the deep, sweet, unselfish love of one human soul on this earth! If I could only have won a girl's heart when I was poor; but I was rich, and I've always wondered whether she really loved me for my own sake. At least I've always thanked God for you. You've been a real friend. Our hearts were young together and you stood by me when--I--was--a--poor--lonely--friendless--dog----"

His voice sank low and he gasped painfully for breath. Stuart knew the end had come. He bent low and whispered:

"Give me your hand, Cal, old boy, we must say goodbye. I must go in a minute."

To his surprise the hand was not extended.

An hour later when the covering was turned back from the dead body he saw that the smooth little cold hand had gripped the key to his treasures in a last instinctive grasp.

Stuart drew the curtains of scarlet and gold, touched a spring and raised the massive broad window. The death-chamber was flooded with fresh balmy air and dazzling sunlight. All that was left of him who boasted his mastery of the world lay on the magnificent bed, a lump of white cold flesh and projecting bones. The little body looked stark and hideous in the sunlight.

The reporters down stairs were prying into his affairs like so many ferrets to find out how much he left. One of them asked Stuart his opinion.

The lawyer gazed at the young reporter, thoughtfully, while he slowly answered:

"There's only one thing sure, young man, he left it all!"

Through the open window Stuart caught the perfume of flowers on the lawn. The Italian gardeners were working on the flower beds the little man loved. The great swan-like form of a Hudson River steamer swept by, piling the white foam of the clear waters on her bow, bearing high on the side the gilded name of a man who was once Bivens's associate in great ventures, but who was now wearing a suit of convict's stripes behind the walls of a distant prison.

A long line of barges loaded with brick for new houses came floating down the stream behind a busy little tug. On the soft morning breezes the young Southerner's keen car caught the twang of a banjo and the joyous music of negro brickmen singing an old-fashioned melody of his native state; while over all, like an eternal chorus, came the dim muffled roar of the city's life.

He looked again at the lump of cold clay, and wondered what was passing in the soul of the woman who was now the heir of all his millions.

Why had she shown such strange and abject terror over his death--an event she had foreseen and desired? He recalled the hoarse unnatural voice and the blind fumbling at her telephone.

A horrible suspicion suddenly flushed through his mind!

He determined to know at once. A few skilful questions would reveal the truth. She might be able to conceal it from the world, but not from him. He called a servant and asked to see Mrs. Bivens immediately.

CHAPTER IX

THE EYES OF PITY

As he had feared, Nan refused point blank to enter the death chamber and asked him to come to her boudoir.

He found her standing by a window, apparently calm. Stuart looked at her a moment with a curious detached interest. Suddenly aware of his presence she turned, her eyes shining with tears, the first he had seen since entering the house.

"At last--at last!" she said in low broken accents. "Oh dear God, how long I've waited and despaired! At last we may belong to each other forever--body and soul! Nothing else matters now, does it? We shall forget all the blank hideous years; you'll forget it, won't you, dearest? You'll forgive me--now--say that you will?"

"I've long ago forgiven, Nan, but tell me about this sudden fatal attack. You were with him when he was stricken?"

"Yes, I took the nurse's place at midnight; I couldn't sleep."

Stuart lowered his eyes to conceal his excitement.