The White Hope slept. The noise of the departing car, which had rousedthe birds, had made no impression on him. As Steve had said, dynamitecould not do it. He slumbered on, calmly detached, unaware of theremarkable changes which, in the past twenty-four hours, had takenplace in his life. An epoch had ended and a new one begun, but he knewit not.

　　And probably, if Kirk and Ruth, who were standing at his bedside,watching him, had roused him and informed him of these facts, he wouldhave displayed little excitement. He had the philosophical temperament.

　　He took things as they came. Great natural phenomena, like Lora DelanePorter, he accepted as part of life. When they were in his life, heendured them stoically. When they went out of it, he got on withoutthem. Marcus Aurelius would have liked William Bannister Winfield. Theybelonged to the same school of thought.

　　The years have a tendency todestroy this placidity towards life and to develop in man a sense ofgratitude to fate for its occasional kindnesses; and Kirk, having beenin the world longer than William Bannister, did not take the gifts ofthe gods so much for granted. He was profoundly grateful for what hadhappened. That Lora Delane Porter should have retired from activeinterference with his concerns was much; but that he should have hadthe incredible good fortune to be freed from the burden of JohnBannister's money was more.

　　If ever money was the root of all evil, this had been. It had come intohis life like a poisonous blight, withering and destroying wherever ittouched. It had changed Ruth; it had changed William Bannister; it hadchanged himself; it was as if the spirit of the old man had lived on,hating him and working him mischief. He always had superstitious fearof it; and events had proved him right.

　　And now the cloud had rolled away. A few crowded hours of Bailey'sdashing imbecility had removed the curse forever.

　　He was alone with Ruth and his son in a world that contained only them,just as in the old days of their happine............