"He used to sing that song," said Forrest, "so that the cold chills went galloping the length of a man's spine. He was as like you to look at," he turned to the earl, "as one star is like another. I cannot tell you how it has moved me to meet you. We were in a place called Grub Gulch, placer-mining--half a dozen of us. I came down with the scarlet fever. The others bolted, all but Charlie Stuart. He stayed. But by the time I was up, thanks to him, he was down--thanks to me. He died of it." Forrest finished very gravely. "Good Lord!" said the earl. "_He_ might ha' been a king," said Forrest. And he swallowed the lump that rose in his throat, and turned away so that his face could not be seen by them. But, presently, he flashed about with his winning smile. "What, would all you rich young people do if you hadn't a sou in the world?" "Good Lord!" said Stephen, "everything I know how to do decently costs money." "I feel sure," said Alice, her arm about Evelyn's waist, "that our beauty and goodness would see _us_ through." "I," said Ellen, "would quietly curl up and die." "I," said Dorothy, "would sell my earl to the highest bidder." "I shouldn't bring tuppence," said the earl. "But you," said Forrest to the earl, "what would you do if you were stone-broke?" "I would marry Dorothy to-morrow," said the earl, "instead of waiting until September. Fortunately, I have a certain amount of assets that the law won't allow me to get rid of." "I wish you could," said Forrest. "Why?" The earl wrinkled his eyebrows. "I would like to see what you would do." He laid his hand lightly upon the young Englishman's shoulder. "You don't mind? I am an old man," he said, "but I cannot tell you--what meeting you has meant to me. I want you to come with me now, for a few minutes, to Mr. Ballin. Will you?" III "Mr. Ballin," said Forrest, his hand still on the earl's shoulder, "I want you to tell this young man what only you and I know." Ballin looked up from his chair with the look of a sick man. "It's this, Charlie," he said in a voice that came with difficulty. "It's a mistake to suppose that I am a rich man. Everything in this world that I honestly thought belonged to me belongs to Mr. Forrest." The earl read truth in the ashen, careworn face of his love's father. "But surely," he said anxiously, "Dorothy is still yours--to give." Forrest's dark and brooding countenance became as if suddenly brightly lighted. "My boy--my boy!" he cried, and he folded the wriggling and embarrassed Stuart in his long, gaunt arms. I think an angel bringing glad tidings might have looked as Forrest did when, releasing the Earl of Moray, he turned upon the impulse and began to pour out words to Ballin.