"Let us speak frankly," answered Archie. "I have no true friends in the world but the D'Haberville family and yours."
"Thank you, sir," said Dumais, "for classing us poor farmers with that illustrious family."
"I only consider the virtues and good qualities of men," answered Lochiel. "To be sure, I love and respect birth and breeding, which does not prevent me from loving and respecting all men who are worthy of such sentiments. I want to give you a fourth part of my fortune."
"Oh, sir!" cried Dumais.
"Listen a moment, my friend," continued Lochiel. "When I told you that I was suffering from what you call 'peine d'esprit,' I was telling the literal truth. I have found the remedy for this trouble. It lies in plenty of hard work and in helping my friends. I am going to give you during my life-time a quarter of my fortune. Look out for yourself, Dumais! I am obstinate, like all Scotchmen. If you trifle with me, instead of a quarter, I am as likely as not to give you a half. But, to speak seriously, my dear Dumais, you would be doing me a very ill turn, indeed, if you should refuse me."
"If this is the case, sir," said Dumais, with tears in his eyes, "I accept your gift."
Let us leave Lochiel busying himself in heaping benefits on Dumais, and let us return to our other friends.
"The good gentleman," now almost a hundred years old, lived but a year after Jules's return. He died surrounded by his friends, having been most lovingly nursed by Blanche and Jules throughout the month of his last illness. A little while before his death he begged Jules to open his bed-room window, and, casting a feeble glance toward the stream which rolled peacefully past his door, he murmured:
"There it is, my friend; there's the walnut tree in whose shadow I told you the story of my misfortunes; it was there I counseled you from my own experience. I die content, for I see that you have profited by my words. When I am gone, take this little candlestick. It will remind you of the vigils it has witnessed and of the advice which I have given you.