'The money I had got that morning was only just in time to save my younger brother from life-long disgrace, perhaps imprisonment.' "Then painfully--in short and broken sentences--he related to Jack the history of his hard, sad, but heroic life.

_He_ did not think it heroic--it seemed to him, in his single-minded conscientiousness, that he had done no more than his duty, and that but imperfectly.

He had given his life for others, and, hardest of all, for others who had little appreciated his devotion.
"'My father died when I was only about twelve,' he said.

'He had been a clergyman, but his health failed, and he had to leave England and take a small charge in Switzerland.

There he met my mother--a Swiss, and there I was partly brought up.