“I must run my chances, sir,” said Bayard in a voice so low that it was scarcely audible. Instinctively he drew his latch-key from his pocket and held it out; but Mr. Hermon Worcester did not deign to notice it. “I have never thought about your money, Uncle. I’m not that kind of fellow, exactly. You have always been good to me, Uncle Hermon!” He choked, and held out his hand to say good-by. “But look here--see here--you’ll stay to dinner? You’ll go up to your room, Manuel?” stammered the elder man. “I explicitly told you that I didn’t drive you out of your home. I don’t desire any scene--any unnecessary scandal. I wish you to understand that you are not turned into the street.” “I have promised to be in Windover this evening, to settle this matter,” replied Bayard. He looked over his uncle’s head, through the old, purple, Beacon Street glass, upon the waters of Charles River; then softly closed the library door, looked for a moment about the dark, familiar hall, took his hat from the peg on the carved mahogany tree where he had hung his cap when he was a little boy in Latin School, and went down the long, stone steps. It occurred to him to go back and tell Partredge and Nancy to look after his uncle carefully, but he remembered that he had no reason to give them for his indefinite absence, bethought himself of his uncle’s horror of airing family affairs before servants, and so went on. He walked up the street slowly, for he was weak yet. At the door of an old friend, he was tempted to pause and rest, but collected his senses, and struggled on. He turned to look for a cab; then remembered that he had no longer fifty cents to waste upon so mere a luxury as the economy of physical strength. It was his first lesson in poverty,--that a sick man must walk, because he could not afford to ride. Besides, it proved to be a private carriage that he had seen. The elderly coachman, evidently a family retainer, had just shut the door and clambered to the box; he was waiting to tuck the green cloth robe deliberately about his elegant legs, when a low exclamation from the coach window caused Bayard to look back. Helen Carruth had opened the door, and stood, irresolute, with one foot upon the step, as if half her mind were in, and half were out the carriage. She was richly dressed in purple cloth, and had that fashionable air which he could not conceive of her as dispensing with if she were a missionary in Tahiti. She looked vivid, vital, warm, and somehow, gorgeous to him. “_You?_” she cried joyously; then seemed to recall herself, and stepped back. He went up to her at once. “I have been staying with Clara Rollins for a week,” she hastened to say. “I am just going home. It’s her afternoon at the Portuguese Mission, so she could not see me off. I did not know you were in town, Mr. Bayard.” “I am not,” said Bayard, smiling wanly. “I am on my way to Windover; I am late to my train now.”