‘I cared not if it came straight from Lucifer,’ answered the other passionately. ‘From that hour I lived only to make money. I had lived for little else before, you will say, perhaps; but I worked harder now. Fortune seemed to favour me, just as the Fates seem now and then to favour the desperate gamester. I made some lucky sales with the shrunken remnant of my stock. I found gems in queer out-of-the-way places; for at this time I was endowed with an almost superhuman activity, and travelled many miles every day. I roamed the Continent, and brought home wonders of art. I acquired a reputation for finding objects of rarest merit, and celebrated collectors paid me my price without a murmur. So I worked on, until the expiry of my lease found me with a large stock and some thousands in hand. Then the idea suddenly occurred to me that my best chance of dying a rich man—or of doubling, tripling, or quadrupling my capital before I died—was to let my stock lie fallow. I surrendered my premises rather than pay the enormous rent which the landlord demanded for them. I might have sold my stock, and retired with a comfortable income; but I determined to keep it, and die worth fifty thousand pounds. I found this old house—roomy and secluded; I brought my wealth here. There are cases of rare old china stowed away in some of the rooms which you have not even seen. Since I came here, I went on buying, so long as my funds would admit; and since the exhaustion of my capital, I have done a good deal of business in the way of barter—weeding out objects of lesser value from my collection, and making many a good bargain with dealers who only half know their trade. Thus even after my funds were gone I managed to enrich my collection.’ ‘And now, I conclude,’ said Lucius, ‘that your chief pleasure is the idea of giving your name to a museum—of leaving behind you a memorial which shall survive for generations to come?’ ‘I have no such thought,’ answered the other. ‘My talk of leaving these things to the nation was but an idle threat. No, Lucius, my dream and my hope from the time of my son’s desertion have been the realisation of a large fortune—you understand, a fortune—a fortune to be left away from that base boy—a fortune which he should hear of, whose full extent should be known to him; wealth that he should hunger for, while he lay in the gutter. I have made the fortune, Lucius, and I leave it all to you. That is my revenge.’ ‘To _me_!’ cried Lucius, aghast. ‘To you. But mind, not a sixpence, not a halfpenny, to that man, should he come whining to you; not a crust of bread to ward off the pangs of starvation.’ ‘You have left everything to me,’ said Lucius, with undiminished surprise, ‘to me! You pass over your granddaughter, your own flesh and blood, to make me your heir!’ ‘What does it matter whether it goes to you or Lucille?’ asked Mr. Sivewright impatiently. ‘You love her?’ ‘With all the strength of my heart.’