Cursed by a Fortune Part 81

There were words in that letter which seemed burned into his brain and he had a bitter fight to hold himself aloof. For in simple, heart-appealing language she had said: "Am I never to see you and tell you how I pray nightly for him who twice saved my life, and enabled me to live and say I am still worthy of being called his friend?"

Pride--honourable feeling--true manhood--whatever it was--he fought and won, for in his unworldly way he told himself that in his early struggles for a position he could not ask a rich heiress to be his wife.

"I know," Jenny often said, "that she wishes she had hardly a penny in the world."

It does not fall to many of us to have our fondest wishes fulfilled, but Kate Wilton had hers, though in a way which brought misery to thousands, though safety to more who have lived since.

For the great commercial crisis burst upon London. One of the great banks collapsed, and dragged others, like falling card houses, in its wake. Among others, Wilton's Joint Stock Bank came to the ground, and in its ruin the two-thirds left of Kate's money went out like so much burning paper, leaving only a few tiny sparks to scintillate in the tinder, and disappear.

"Oh, how horrible!" cried Jenny, when the news reached the Leighs.

"What a horrid shame! I must go and see her now she is in such trouble."

"No," said Leigh, drawing himself up with a sigh of relief, "let me go first."

"Pierce!" cried Jenny, excitedly, as she sprang to her brother's breast, her face glowing from the result of shockingly selfish thoughts connected with Claud Wilton and matrimony, "and you mean to ask her that?"

He nodded, kissed her lovingly, and hurried to Kate Wilton's side.

The interview was strictly private, as a matter of course, but the consequences were not long in following, and among other things James Wilton made his will--the will of a straightforward, honest man.

There were people who said that the pa.s.sing of the Limited Liability Act was mainly due to the way in which Kate Wilton's fortune was swept away.

That undoubtedly was a piece of fiction, but out of evil came much good.

THE END.