He tried not to see the horribly haunting vision of the murdered Wrotham, with that terrible gash in his throat, and the blood pouring from it,--he strove to forget the pitiful picture of the little dead "Kiddie" in the arms of its maddened and broken-hearted father--but the impression was too recent and too ghastly for forgetfulness.
"And yet with it all," he mused, "Tom o' the Gleam had what I have never possessed--love! And perhaps it is better to die--even in the awful way he died--in the very strength and frenzy of love--rather than live loveless!" Here Charlie heaved a small sigh, and nestled a soft silky head close against his breast.

"I love you!" the little creature seemed to say--"I am only a dog--but I want to comfort you if I can!" And he murmured--"Poor Charlie! Poor wee Charlie!" and, patting the flossy coat of his foundling, was conscious of a certain consolation in the mere companionship of an animal that trusted to him for protection.
Presently he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

His brain was somewhat confused, and scraps of old songs and verses he had known in boyhood, were jumbled together without cause or sequence, varying in their turn with the events of his business, his financial "deals" and the general results of his life's work.

He remembered quite suddenly and for no particular reason, a battle he had engaged in with certain directors of a company who had attempted to "better" him in a particularly important international trade transaction, and he recalled his own sweeping victory over them with a curious sense of disgust.

What did it matter--now ?--whether he had so many extra millions, or so many more degrees of power?
Certain lines of Tennyson's seemed to contain greater truths than all the money-markets of the world could supply:-- "O let the solid earth Not fail beneath my feet, Before my life has found What some have found so sweet-- Then let come what come may, What matter if I go mad, I shall have had my day! "Let the sweet heavens endure Not close and darken above me, Before I am quite, quite sure That there is one to love me; Then let come what come may To a life that has been so sad, I shall have had my day!" He murmured this last verse over and over again till it made mere monotony in his mind, and till at last exhausted nature had its way and lulled his senses into a profound slumber.