He fell back in his chair and stared up at me with frightened eyes. The mystery was out, and an awful dismay seized him that at length in one moment of sentiment he had parted with the secret that had been life to him. “What have I said?” he whispered, stilly. “Renalt, you won’t give any heed to the maundering of an old man?” I looked down on him pityingly. “Don’t fear me, father,” I said, almost with a groan. “I will never breathe a word of it to anybody.” “Good, dear boy,” he answered, smiling. “I can trust you, I know. You were always my favorite, Renalt, and----” He broke off with a sudden, sharp cry. “My favorite,” and he stared up at me. “My favorite? So kings treat their favorites!” He passed a nervous hand across his forehead, his wild eyes never leaving my face. I could make nothing of his changing moods. “What about the jar of coins?” I said. “Ah!” he muttered, the odd expression degrading his features once more. “They were such a treasure it was never one man’s lot to acquire before or since--heaven’s compensation for the cruelty of the world.” “Where did you find them?” “In an ancient barrow of the dead,” he whispered, looking fearfully around him--“there, on the downs. It had rained heavily, and there had been a subsidence. I was idly brooding, and idly flung a stone through a rent in the soil. It tinkled upon something. I put in my hand and touched and brought away a disk of metal. It was a golden coin. I covered all up and returned at night, unearthed the jar and brought it secretly home. It was no great size, but full to the throat of gold. Then I knew that life had found me a new lease of pleasure. I hid the jar where no one could discover it and set about to enjoy the gift. It came in good time. The mill had ceased to yield. My store of money was near spent. I selected three or four of the likeliest coins and carried them to a man in London that bought such things--a numismatist he called himself. If he had any scruples he smothered them then and afterward, in face of such treasures as it made his eyes shoot green to look upon. He asked me at first where I had got them. Hunting about the downs, I said. That was the formula. He never asked for more. He gave me a good price for them, one by one, and made his heavier profit, no doubt, on each. They yielded richly and went slowly. They made an idle, debauched man of me, who forgot even his revenge in the glut of possession.” He seemed even then to accuse himself, through an affectation rather than a conviction of avarice. “They went slowly,” he repeated; “till--till--Renalt, I would have loved you as boy was never loved, if you had killed that doctor, as you killed----” he stopped and gave a thin cry of anguish. “I didn’t kill Modred, father. I know it now.” “No, no--you didn’t,” he half-whined in a cowering voice. “Don’t say I said it. I caught myself up.” “We’ll talk about that presently. The doctor----”