The letter reached him on Monday morning. He had been suffering considerably, and Sylvester was there, having made hasty arrangements for the care of his patients in town. Matthew submitted to confinement to the house, but insisted on getting up for breakfast. Bed was not the proper place for a man to eat in, he declared, and nothing but main force would have kept him there. So he sat down to table and made a valiant pretence at eating, while Miss Lanyon cast appealing glances at Sylvester and suggested arrow-root, and beef-tea, and eggs, and brandy, at intervals. “If you hint at any more horrors, Agatha,” said the old man, looking up from his letter, “I'll go to the office.” The white reflected glare from a slight fall of snow that covered the lawn filled the comfortable dining-room. Miss Lanyon glanced through the French window and shivered. Matthew was quite capable of carrying out his threat. She refrained from further suggestions, and meanwhile Matthew finished his letter in peace. He folded it up when he had read it and put it in his pocket. He felt happier. Ella had revealed to him a Roderick that he had never realised. The girl's early struggles showed that she had mistrusted him. Now she had arrived at the man's heart and found it loyal and worthy. A fluttering at the glass caused him to rise and gather up a handful of breadcrumbs for the birds. Having thrown it out on to the lawn, he closed the window and stood watching the feast, Dorothy by his side. It was a bright morning, the sun shining from a pale blue sky and glinting on the myriad facets of the snow. The red clusters on a holly bush and the breasts of a couple of robins among the fluttering birds made tiny specks of colour against the white. The earth was sweet. Matthew felt a sense of exhilaration. After all, perhaps this was the great reparation that through his indirect agency had been accomplished. Materially, Roderick was relieved for life from the sordid cares of poverty; and spiritually, if ever woman could raise a man's soul to gentler things, that woman was Ella Defries. His life had not been wholly lived in vain. Soon his managing clerk brought the office letters. They retired to the library, and Matthew threw himself with more spirit into affairs than he had been able to show for some time past. At twelve o'clock Sylvester entered with some medicine. He found his father alone, writing hard amid a sea of papers. A professional rebuke induced him to desist. “If you write another line, I'll go straight back to London,” said Sylvester. “You are much more needed there than you are here, I assure you,” said the old man. “I'm as fit as ever I was.”