There had been a time when a business career had seemed probable for Dave. That was when Andrew Hallard first gave up the sea. He had made a considerable fortune by sea trading and wise investment. Everything appeared rosy in those days, and if Captain Hallard had rested on his laurels, all would have been well. He was a true sailor and knew his work thoroughly, but success had made him ambitious for greater things. The business of underwriting ships is one which needs not only a close knowledge of shipping, but also considerable skill in the world of finance. It appeared, however, to Andrew Hallard to offer excellent opportunities, and he launched forth into it. For a while luck went with him, but one or two of his speculations came to grief. In order to recoup himself of these losses he plunged a shade deeper, taking risks about which more experienced men would have hesitated. At this critical moment two vessels were lost, and in order to pay the insurance he had to raise a mortgage on his own property which left him financially crippled. It did not take him long to discover that without the power of money behind him his position in business amounted to nothing, and he had to hunt for the command of another ship. On his first voyage, however, rheumatism, brought on by long exposure in bad weather, left him unfit for the one profession he had at his finger-tips. Then he was compelled to settle down ashore and share his home with his sister Martha. Aunt Martha had a very small income and few relatives. She was a prim, elderly lady with a profound distrust of anything in the way of speculation. Several times before Andrew Hallard’s crash arrived she warned him that a bird in the hand was safer than ten in a bush, but when he came back, almost a physical wreck, to his motherless boy, her heart softened, and she threw in her lot with his. It was sometimes a struggle for them to make ends meet, but her brother Andrew had been good to her in his successful days, so it gave her additional pleasure to help him now. The bitterest blow was when his little estate on Long Island went――the home he had worked for during so many years. It was just the sort of place a sea-captain might picture, during his travels, as that in which he could spend the autumn of his life contentedly. When it was built, and he went to live there, he called the house “Journey’s End.” It was perched high on a cliff, facing the sea he loved, and while he lived there he spent many hours watching the distant ships through a telescope. Once or twice in recent years he had taken Dave with him to look at the old place, drawn to it by happy memories, but the visit always made him unhappy.