One second he lay overcome; the next, tears filled his eyes,
and he reached out his hand. Then the Angel's father understood, and he
clasped that hand and held it in a strong, firm grasp.
"Terence, my boy," he said, "let me do the talking. I came here with
the understanding that you wanted to ask me for my only child. I should
like, at the proper time, to regard her marriage, if she has found the
man she desires to marry, not as losing all I have, but as gaining a man
on whom I can depend to love as a son and to take charge of my affairs
for her when I retire from business. Bend all of your energies toward
rapid recovery, and from this hour understand that my daughter and my
home are yours."
"You're not forgetting this?"
Freckles lifted his right arm.
"Terence, I'm sorrier than I have words to express about that," said
the Man of Affairs. "It's a damnable pity! But if it's for me to choose
whether I give all I have left in this world to a man lacking a hand, or
to one of these gambling, tippling, immoral spendthrifts of today, with
both hands and feet off their souls, and a rotten spot in the core, I
choose you; and it seems that my daughter does the same.
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