At the end of the first year Vane took a week's vacation, walking in the Catskills. Every week he had a letter from Rennes; and frequently one from Dr. Kérouec, telling him of no change in his mother's condition. When he returned from his vacation, he was called into the counting-room of the senior partner, and given a check for four hundred dollars in addition to his first year's salary of six hundred; and, moreover, was promoted to a position of three thousand a year salary. That first year, Vane had spent three hundred and eighty dollars in board and lodging, and eighty more in pocket money. He had bought no clothing, having brought all he needed from France. His travelling expenses had been large, but these he had charged to the account of his father's estate. This left him five hundred and forty dollars to the good. Vane then went to Mr. Peyton and borrowed three thousand dollars on his own security. This three thousand he sent to Dr. Kérouec; and five hundred dollars of his earnings he invested in a life-assurance policy payable to Dr. Kérouec as trustee for his mother. He thus had forty dollars in his pocket at the beginning of his second year. By this time some of his father's railways were beginning to get out of shallow water. Vane watched them carefully; and by judicious management and successful sales, he was able, on the first of August, eighteen hundred and seventy-six, the end of the three years allowed him, to pay his father's creditors their claims in full--four hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars, with interest for three years at six per cent. And over and above this, after paying Mr. Peyton, he had sixteen thousand dollars, which he might call his own. Early in August he sailed for Brittany, and spent a week with Dr. Kérouec at Rennes. His mother's hair was now white; she was quiet, but still hopelessly insane, nor did she even recognize him. Vane was back again on the first of September. When he presented himself at the bank, he was offered a responsible position, and a salary of six thousand dollars a year, with a hint of partnership in the near future. He now removed to lodgings in Eighteenth Street; and on going home that night, for the first time in two years he burst into a fit of crying. This turn of hysterics was the prelude to a low fever, of which he lay five weeks ill. IV.