The time had now come when Lucius deemed it a point of honour to inform Mr. Sivewright of this engagement, but not of the condition attaching thereto. He had not forgotten what the old man had said in the first instance, ‘My granddaughter is disposed of;’ but this he imagined was only an idle threat. Day by day he found himself more necessary to the invalid. Mr. Sivewright looked anxiously for his visits, detained him as long as it was possible for him to stay, would have him come back in the evening to sit for an hour or so in the sick-room, talking, or reading the day’s news to him; proved himself, in fact, the most exacting of patients. But in all their intercourse he had expressed no dislike to that intimacy between Lucius and Lucille which he must needs have been aware of; since he saw them together daily, and must have been blind if he failed to see that they were something nearer and dearer to each other than common friends. ‘He cannot be very much surprised when he hears the truth,’ thought Lucius, and only deferred his confession until he perceived a marked improvement in his patient. This arose a little later in the summer, when the old man was able to come down-stairs again, now and then, and even creep about the dreary waste he called his garden. One evening, in the very spot where he had first told his love to Lucille, Lucius mustered courage and took Mr. Sivewright into his confidence, only reserving that hard condition which Lucille had attached to her promise. The old man received this communication with a cynical grin. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I have seen it all along. As if one ever could trust a young man and a young woman to play at being brother and sister without their exchanging that sentimental make-believe for the reality of love-making! Well, I am not angry. I told you my granddaughter was disposed of. That was true so far as it went. I had views for her; but they were vague, and hinged upon my own health and vigour. I thought I had a stronger part to play in life’s drama. Well,’ with a faint sigh, ‘I can afford to resign those old hopes. You may marry Lucille whenever you can afford to keep her in comfort and respectability. Now, my dear Mr. Davoren,’ turning to the surgeon with a look of infinite cunning in his keen eyes, ‘I daresay you think you have made a lucky hit—that, in spite of all I have told you, this show of poverty is only a miser’s pretence: that I have railway shares and consols and debentures and Heaven knows what in my shabby old desk, and that I shall die worth half-a-million. Dismiss that delusion from your mind at once and for ever. If you take Lucille Sivewright for your wife you take a pauper. My collection is all I possess: and I shall leave that most likely to a museum.’