Kirk blinked. He closed his eyes and opened them again. The automobilewas still there, and he was still in it. Ruth was still gazing at himwith the triumphant look in her eyes. The chauffeur, silent emblem of asubstantial bank-balance, still sat stiffly at the steering-wheel.

　　"Rich?" Kirk repeated.

　　"Rich," Ruth assured him.

　　"I don't understand."Ruth's smile faded.

　　"Poor father----""Your father?""He died just after you sailed. Just before Bill got ill." She gave alittle sigh. "Kirk, how odd life is!""But-----""It was terrible. It was some kind of a stroke. He had been working toohard and taking no exercise. You know when he sent Steve away that timehe didn't engage anybody else in his place. He went back to his old wayof living, which the doctor had warned him against. He worked andworked, until one day, Bailey says, he fainted at the office. Theybrought him home, and he just went out like a burned-out candle. I--Iwent to him, but for a long time he wouldn't see me.

　　"Oh, Kirk, the hours I spent in the library hoping that he would let mecome to him! But he never did till right at the end. Then I went up,and he was dying. He couldn't speak. I don't know now how he felttoward me at the last. I kissed him. He was all shrunk to nothing. Ihad a horrible feeling that I had never been a real daughter to him.

　　But--but--you know, he made it difficult, awfully difficult. And thenhe died; Bailey was on one side of the bed and I was on the other, andthe nurse and the doctor were whispering outside the door. I could hearthem through the transom."She slipped her hand into Kirk's and sat silent while the car slid intothe traffic of Fifth Avenue. For the second time the shadow of theGreat Mystery had fallen on the brightness of the perfect morning.

　　The car had stopped at Thirty-Fourth Street to allow the hurryingcrowds to cross the avenue. Kirk looked at them with a feeling ofsadness. It was not caused by John Bannister's death. He was too honestto be able to plunge himself into false emotion at will. His feelingwas more a vague uneasiness, almost a presentiment. Things changed soquickly in this world. Old landmarks shifted as the crowd of strangerswas shifting before him now, hurrying into his life and hurrying out ofit.

　　He, too, had changed. Ruth, though he had detected no signs of it,must be different from the Ruth he had left a year ago. The old lifewas dead. What had the new life in store for him? Wealth for onething--other standards of living--new experiences.

　　An odd sensation of regret that this stream of gold had descended uponhim deepened his momentary depression. They had been so happy, he andRuth and the kid, in the old days of the hermit's cell. Something thatwas almost a superstitious fear of this unexpected legacy came uponhim.