Miss Lois assented, still silently, and the two began their task. Anne, with a quivering lip, unlocked her father's desk. William Douglas had not been a relic-loving man. He had lived, he had loved; but memory was sufficient for him; he needed no tokens. So, amid a hundred mementos of nature, they found nothing personal, not even a likeness of Anne's mother, or lock of her curling brown hair. And amid a mass of miscellaneous papers, writings on every philosophic and imaginative subject, they found but one relating to money--some figures jotted down, with a date affixed, the sum far from large, the date three years before. Below, a later line was added, as if (for the whole was vague) so much had gone, and this was the remainder; the date of this last line was eight months back. "Perhaps this is it," said Anne; "perhaps this is what he had." "I'm sure I don't know," said Miss Lois, mechanically. They went on with the search, and at last came to a package tied in brown paper, which contained money; opening it, they counted the contents. "Three hundred and ten dollars and eighty-five cents," said Anne. Miss Lois took a pen and made a calculation, still with the manner of a machine. "That is about what would be left by this time, at the rate of the sums you have had, supposing the memorandum is what you think it is," she said, rubbing her forehead with a shadowy imitation of her old habit. "It is a large sum," said Anne. Nothing more was found. It appeared, therefore, that the five children of William Douglas were left alone in the world with exactly three hundred and ten dollars and eighty-five cents. Dr. Gaston and Père Michaux learned the result that day; the story spread through the village and up to the fort. "I never heard anything so extraordinary in my life," said Mrs. Cromer. "That a man like Dr. Douglas should have gone on for the last four or five years deliberately living on his capital, seeing it go dollar by dollar, without making one effort to save it, or to earn an income--a father with children! I shall always believe, after this, that the villagers were right, and that his mind was affected." The chaplain stopped these comments gruffly, and the fort ladies forgave him on account of the tremor in his voice. He left them, and went across to his little book-clogged cottage with the first indications of age showing in his gait. "It is a blow to him; he is very fond of Anne, and hoped everything for her," said Mrs. Bryden. "I presume he would adopt her if he could; but there are the other children." "They might go to their mother's relatives, I should think," said Mrs. Rankin. "They could, but Anne will not allow it. You will see." "I suppose our good chaplain has nothing to bequeath, even if he should adopt Anne?" "No, he has no property, and has saved nothing from his little salary; it has all gone into books," answered the colonel's wife.