‘No money can make amends for sin,’ said Frederick, sententiously. ‘And how is this sum to be settled on Miss Berry, Mr Walcheren?’ demanded the solicitor. ‘In trust for the child, or unconditionally on herself?’ ‘Unconditionally on herself, please. I know, if she uses it at all, it will be for the benefit of the boy. Keep a note of my directions, Mr Sinclair, but don’t draw up the deed until you do the two together. There will be less chance then, I think, of my being bothered from either side. When you draw the five thousand pounds, take it from the sum in consols. There will be the less chance of its being missed. Oh, dear! how glad I shall be when all this worry is over, and matters settled for good and all!’ ‘Am I to draw out this sum, and re-invest it in Miss Berry’s name?’ ‘No, put it back in consols. It is a lower rate of interest than Rhoda could get elsewhere, but it is safer; and women are idiots about money matters. When you write and tell her about my present, perhaps you will advise her not to take it out on the chance of getting more interest. And, Sinclair, I wish you to have five hundred pounds, over and above what I may owe you.’ ‘I couldn’t think of taking such a sum, Mr Walcheren. It is far too much.’ ‘Nonsense! You were a good friend to me when I was knocking about town, and got me out of many a scrape, and I know no one whom I would rather give it to. Why, what’s the odds to me? I sha’n’t have a halfpenny in my own hands in a fortnight’s time. Why shouldn’t I have the pleasure of making my old friends a little present whilst I can.’ ‘You’re very good, Mr Walcheren, and I don’t say that the sum will not give me pleasure, and be very useful to me; but, believe me, when I add that I would rather, a thousand times over, see it in your own hands. This step you contemplate makes me very uneasy. It seems so unnatural--so sudden!’ ‘It is sudden, Sinclair, but not unnatural. In losing my beloved wife, I have lost everything, and I don’t care what becomes of the rest of my life. The vocation I am about to adopt is the one chosen for me by my mother, and I am only following her express wishes by entering the Church. It appears unnatural to you, because you have never known me, except as a wild, devil-may-care fellow, up to any pranks, and utterly careless all round. But you don’t know the complete difference a shock, like the one I have experienced, makes in a man. It opens his eyes in a moment, as it were, to the folly and wickedness of his past life, and makes him see that there is only one thing worth living and striving for, and that is--the next. Once convinced of that truth, there can be no returning to the past existence. It fades away like a dream, and nothing can content one in the future, but hard, solid, substantial work.’