"A poor man. Once rich."

"He might feel my visit as an intrusion."

"No."

"What reduced him to poverty?"

"A friend, in whom he put unlimited faith, deceived and ruined him."

"Ah!"

"And he has never been able to recover himself."

"What is his state of mind?"

"You shall judge for yourself."

In poor lodgings they found a man far past the prime of life. He was
in feeble health, and for over two months had not been able to go
out and attend to business. His wife was dead, and his children
absent. Of all this Mr. Fanshaw had been told on the way. His
surprise was real, when he saw, instead of a sad-looking,
disappointed and suffering person, a cheerful old man, whose face
warmed up on their entrance, as if sunshine were melting over it.
Conversation turned in the direction Mr. Wilkins desired it to take,
and the question soon came, naturally, from Mr. Fanshaw--

"And pray, sir, how were you sustained amid these losses, and