Then Gilead Beck brought out the little wooden box, the same in which the Golden Butterfly lay when he ran from the Bear on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. And Phillis laid her new treasure in the cotton-wool and slung the box by its steel chain round his neck, laughing in a solemn fashion.
While they talked thus sadly, the door opened, and Lawrence Colquhoun stood before them.
Agatha cried out when she saw him, because he was transformed. The lazy insouciant look was gone; a troubled look was in its place. Worse than a troubled look—a look of misery; a look of self-reproach; a look as of a criminal brought to the bar and convicted.
"Lawrence!" cried Mrs. L'Estrange.
He came into the room in a helpless sort of way, his hands shaking before him like those of some half-blind old man.
"Phillis," he said, in hoarse voice, "forgive me!"
"What have I to forgive, Lawrence?"
"Forgive me!" he repeated humbly. "Nay, you do not understand. Dunquerque, it is for you to speak—for all of you—you all love Phillis. Agatha—you love her—you used to love me too. How shall I tell you?"
"I think we guess," said Gilead.
"I did it for the best, Phillis. I thought to double your fortune. Cassilis said I should double it. I thought to double my own. I put all your money, child, every farthing of your money, in Eldorado Stock by his advice, and all my own too. And it is all gone—every penny of it gone."