The period of prosperity following the visit of Wandering Peter had lasted all but two years. It came to an end with the death of his father. It was while working on his new invention that the accident had happened. He was alone in the workshop one evening after supper; and while hoisting a heavy iron bar the rope had broken and the bar had fallen upon him and crushed his skull. He lingered for a day or two, mostly unconscious. It was a few hours before the end that Anthony, who had been sent upstairs by his mother to see if anything had happened, found his father with his eyes wide open. The man made a sign to him to close the door. The boy did so and then came and stood beside the bed. “There won’t be anything left, sonny,” his father whispered. “I’ve been a fool. Everything I could get or borrow I put into it. It would have been all right, of course, if I had lived and could have finished it. Your mother doesn’t know, as yet. Break it to her after I’m gone, d’you mind. I haven’t the pluck.” Anthony promised. There seemed to be more that his father wanted to say. He lay staring at the child with a foolish smile about his loose, weak mouth. Anthony sat on the edge of the bed and waited. He put his hand on the boy’s thigh. “I wish I could say something to you,” he whispered. “You know what I mean: something that you could treasure up and that would be of help to you. I’ve always wanted to. When you used to ask questions and I was short with you, it was because I couldn’t answer them. I used to lie awake at night and try to think them out. And then I thought that when I came to die something might happen, that perhaps I’d have a vision or something of that sort--they say that people do, you know--that would make it all plain to me and that I’d be able to tell you. But it hasn’t come. I suppose I ain’t the right sort. It all seems dark to me.” His mind wandered, and after a few incoherent words he closed his eyes again. He did not regain consciousness. Anthony broke it to his mother--about everything having been sacrificed to the latest new invention. “Lord love the man!” she answered. “Did he think I didn’t know? We were just a pair of us. I persuaded myself it was going to pan out all right this time.” They were standing by the bedside. His mother had been up to the great house and had brought back with her a fine wreath of white flowers. They lay upon the sheet just over his breast. Anthony hardly knew his father; the weak, twitching lips were closed and formed a firm, strong line. Apart from the mouth his face had always been beautiful; though, lined with fret and worry and the fair hair grimy and uncombed, few had ever noticed it. His mother stooped and kissed the high pale brow. “He is like what I remember him at the beginning,” she said. “You can see that he was a gentleman, every inch of him.” His mother looked younger standing there beside her dead man. A softness had come into her face.