thousands of pounds a year I He must certainly stop all his donations of a guinea a year to churches and hospitals! Added to all his troubles, the married couple, who had supplied his personal wants for ten years past, could tolerate his vagaries no longer, and were leaving him.
Alone in the world the millionaire stood in his ghostly mansion, under his far-reaching hills and valleys of richest pasture—deserted, despised! He would stand it no longer! One evening when the whisky was firing his brain, he had roved from room to room! .... There was a sudden explosion that no one heard! A heavy fall! Then a silence as of death reigned in the great house.
"I can't find the master nowheres, Jim," said the housekeeper, after taking in the last "hot toddy" before retiring. "I'm afeared for him. He looked so wild again this evening. Come and have a look; hold the dip."
In the vast, dim drawing-room the faithful couple almost stumbled over the form of the unfortunate millionaire. The woman screamed and started back with horror. Her husband knelt and sought the pulse of the unhappy man.
"Not dead," he reported; "quick, get some water and some whisky."
Weeping, chattering like two children, the simple pair bathed the wound above the temple from which blood was oozing, poured the whisky that had caused the deed down the throat of the dying man. He was heavy; they hesitated to try to carry him.
"Jane, old girl, run and call some one," said the man hoarsely.
"There's no one to fetch."
"Go and ask Mr. Dowling to run across. He'll know what to do."
