"Mr. Grandon, when a man's life comes to be told off by days, he must do his work quickly, not daring to count on any future. I had hoped--but we must to business. Come nearer. Sit there in the light. No, you are not much like your father, and yet totally unlike your brother. I think I can trust you. I must, for there is nothing left, nothing!" "You can trust me," Floyd Grandon says, in a tone that at once establishes confidence. "And one could trust your father to the uttermost. If he had but lived!" "No one regrets that more bitterly than I, and I thank you for the kindly praise." "A good man, a just man. And now he has left all to you, and it is a strange, tangled mass. I meant to help, but alas, I shall soon be beyond help." And the brow knits itself in anxious lines, while the eyes question with a vague fear. "If you could explain a little of the trouble. I am no mechanic, and yet I have dabbled into scientific matters. But you are too ill." A spasm passes over his face, leaving it blue and pinched, and St. Vincent makes a gasp for breath. "No. I shall never be better. Do not be alarmed, that was only a trifle. You have seen Wilmarth, and he has told you; but the thing is _not_ a failure, it cannot be! There were some slight miscalculations which I have remedied. If I could find some one to whom I could explain my plans----" "I know a man. I have had him at the factory and he would be glad to see you. He does not quite understand, but he believes it can be made a success. Wilmarth seems doubtful and strange in some ways----" "He is working against me,--no need to tell me that! But why?" And the eager eyes study Grandon painfully. "There is some plan in the man's brain. He came to Canada. Do you know what for?" Grandon looks up in surprise. "I was amazed. The man may have a better heart or more faith than I credit him with. He was so different in your father's time. It is as if some project or temptation had seized him." Then, after a pause, "He asked my daughter in marriage." "I thought she was--a child," says Grandon, in amaze. "So she is. In my country, Mr. Grandon, they manage their daughters differently; not always better, perhaps, but they do not leave them unprotected to the world, to beg their bit of bread, maybe. I have put everything in my invention. It is her dowry." "And he wished to be the sole master of it?" "Exactly. She saw him once." And a bitter smile wreaths the deathly face. "And she does not like him! How could any woman?" Floyd Grandon gives a shiver of disgust. "I have not told her. Yet a man cannot leave a young girl to make a tiger's fight with the world! She, poor lamb, would soon be rent in pieces." "Leave her to my care," says Floyd Grandon. "I have a mother and sisters, and a little girl of my own whom I love as my life. Let me take her and do the best I can with her fortune." "You are very kind. There is one other way. Is your brother at home?"