As for Davie, he was quite overcome.  With a cry of joy so keen that it was like a sob of pain, he fell fainting to the floor.  When he became conscious again he knew that he had been very ill, for there were two physicians by his side, and Sandy’s face was full of anguish and anxiety.

“He will do now, sir.  It was only the effect of a severe shock on a system too impoverished to bear it.  Give him a good meal and a glass of wine.”

Sandy was not long in following out this prescription, and during it what a confiding session these two hearts held!  Davie told his sad history in his own unselfish way, making little of all his sacrifices, and saying a great deal about his son Sandy, and Sandy’s girls and boys.

But the light in his brother’s eyes, and the tender glow of admiration with which he regarded the unconscious hero, showed that he understood pretty clearly the part that Davie had always taken.

“However, I am o’erpaid for every grief I ever had, Sandy,” said Davie, in conclusion, “since I have seen your face again, and you’re just handsomer than ever, and you eight years older than me, too.”

Yes, it was undeniable that Alexander Morrison was still a very handsome, hale old gentleman; but yet there was many a trace of labor and sorrow on his face; and he had known both.

For many years after he had left Davie, life had been a very hard battle to him.  During the first twenty years of their separation, indeed, Davie had perhaps been the better off, and the happier of the two.

When the war broke out, Sandy had enlisted early, and, like Davie, carried through all its chances and changes the hope of finding his brother.  Both of them had returned to their homes after the struggle equally hopeless and poor.

But during the last eleven years fortune had smiled on Sandy.  Some call of friendship for a dead comrade led him to a little Pennsylvania village, and while there he made a small speculation in oil, which was successful.  He resolved to stay there, rented his little Western farm, and went into the oil business.

“And I have saved thirty thousand dollars, hard cash, Davie.  Half of it is yours, and half mine.  See!  Fifteen thousand has been entered from time to time in your name.  I told you, Davie, that when I came back we would share dollar for dollar, and I would not touch a cent of your share no more than I would rob the United States Treasury.”

It was a part of Davie’s simple nature that he accepted it without any further protestation.  Instinctively he felt that it was the highest compliment he could pay his brother.  It was as if he said:  “I firmly believed the promise you made me more than forty years ago, and I firmly believe in the love and sincerity which this day redeems it.”  So Davie looked with a curious joyfulness at the vouchers which testified to fifteen thousand dollars lying in the Chemical Bank, New York, to the credit of David Morrison; and then he said, with almost the delight of a schoolboy: