interlocking his wasted fingers with one another, glancing now and
then out of the window, where he could see Roy pacing back and forth
in front of the cottage. Finally he murmured so low that Sydney was
obliged to bend forward to catch the words:

"Would you be surprised to hear that I had a vast amount of money in
the deposit companies in Philadelphia?"

"No, Mr. Tyler," replied Sydney. "It has always been supposed that you
were a man of wealth."

"I am, I am," muttered the miser. "I have something like half a
million. And yet what good has it done me? I have hoarded it just for
the sake of hoarding. It began to come to me when I was quite young. I
was surprised. Some property was wanted by the city. They paid me well
for it. I invested what I got and doubled it, I kept on making money
till I loved it for itself alone and could not bear to part with it
even on the chance of making more. So I left it all to draw interest
except what little it takes to support me in the poor way in which I
live."

He paused and Sydney adjudged it proper to inquire.

"Then you have no relatives, no one dependent on you?"

"I have outlived them all," was the reply. "There was a boy, though,
who was once in my employ and whom I came to think a good deal of. But
he grew up and went into stocks and tried to bear the market against
me. I never forgave Maurice Darley for that. And yet I loved him once.
I brought him up, out of the gutter, as it were, and there was a time