His brother was now in America--doing well he hoped, thanks of course to him; his sister's circumstances too had improved.

For the first time in his life Sawyer had begun to feel his burdens lessening, when he was brought face to face with the knowledge that all in this world was over for him.

Uncomplainingly he had, through all these long years, borne the heat and burden of the day; rest for him was to be elsewhere, not here.

But as he had met life, so he now met death--calmly and unrepiningly, certain that hard as it had been hard as it seemed now, it must yet be for the best--the solving of the riddle he left to God.
"And his last thought was for others--for the mother who had so little appreciated him, who required to lose him, perhaps, to bring home to her his whole value.
"'I have always foreseen the possibility of this,' he said, 'and prepared for it as best I could.

Besides the money I have confided to you, I insured my life, most fortunately, last year.