"Money carries no infection. Did you ever ask any questions about the money you won at German gaming-tables. I dare say some of your napoleons and ten-thaler notes could have told queer stories if they had been able to talk. Taking Phil's money has never weighed upon my conscience. I'm not very inquisitive about the antecedents of a five-pound note; but I'll tell you what it is, Hawkehurst, I'd give all I have, and all I ever hope to have, and would go out and sweep a crossing to-morrow, if I could get Tom Halliday's face out of my mind, with the look that he turned upon me the last time I saw him. 'Ah, George,' he said, 'in illness a man feels the comfort of being among friends!' And he took my hand and squeezed it, in his old hearty way. We had been boys together, Hawkehurst, birds-nesting in Hyley Woods; on the same side in our Barlingford cricket-matches. And I shook his hand, and went away, and left him to die!" And here Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn, the Sheldon who was in with the money-lenders, sharpest of legal prestigitators, most ruthless of opponents, most unscrupulous of allies, buried his face in a flaming bandanna, and fairly sobbed aloud. When the passion had passed, he got up and walked hastily to the window, more ashamed of this one touch of honest emotion than of all the falsehoods and chicaneries of his career. "I didn't think I could have been such an ass," he muttered sheepishly. "I did not hope that you could feel so deeply," answered Valentine. "And now help me to save the only child of your ill-fated friend. I am sure that you can help me." Without waiting to be questioned, Valentine related the circumstances of Charlotte's illness, and of his interview with Mr. Burkham. "I did not even know that the poor girl was ill," said George Sheldon. "I have not seen Phil for months. He came here one day, and I gave him a bit of my mind. I told him if he tried to harm her I'd let the light in upon him and his doings. And I'll keep my word." "But his motive? What, in the name of Heaven, can be his motive for taking her innocent life? He knows of the Haygarth estate, and must hope to profit by her fortune if she lives." "Yes, and to secure the whole of that fortune if she dies. Her death would make her mother sole heir to that estate, and the mother is the merest tool in his hands. He may even have induced Charlotte to make a will in his favour, so that he himself may stand in her shoes." "She would not have made a will without telling me of it."