“Not at all, sir,” the apothecary protested:  rubbing a lump of sugar on the rind of a lemon.  “You will suffer me to mix you a glass of punch while I listen?  I am a practical man, who has been forced to make his own way in the world, and has made it, I thank God.  I never found these ancestors of any use to me; but if one of them had time and leisure to carry the heart of the Bruce to Jerusalem I hope I have the leisure to hear about it.  Did he return, may I ask?”

“He did not, sir.  The Saracens slew him before the Holy Sepulchre, and in fact the undertaking was, as you would regard it, unprofitable.  But it gave us the palmer-shells on our coat of arms—­ argent, a cross sable, in each corner three escallops of the last.  I believe, ma’am, the coat differs somewhat in your husband’s branch of the family?” He spread a hand on the table so that the candle-light fell on his signet ring.

Mrs. Wesley smiled.  “We keep the scallops, sir.”

“Scallops!” grunted the apothecary.  “Better for you, Susanna, if your husband had ever found the oyster!”

Garrett Wesley glanced at him from under his badger-gray brows.  “We may be coming to the oyster, sir, if you have patience.  Crest, a wivern proper:  motto, ‘God is love.’  I am thinking, ma’am, a child of yours might find some use for that motto, since children of my own I have none.”

“There could be none nobler, sir,” Mrs. Wesley answered.

“’Tis his then, ma’am, if you can spare me your son Charles.”

The lump of sugar dropped from old Matthew’s fingers and splashed into the tumbler, and with that there fell a silence on the room.  Samuel half rose from his couch and passed a nervous hand over his thick black hair.  His purblind eyes sought his mother’s; hers were fastened on this eccentric kinsman, but with a look that passed beyond him.  Her lips were parted.

“God is love,” she repeated it, soft and low, but with a thrill at which Garrett Wesley raised his head.  “If ever I had distrusted it, that love is manifested here to-night.  There was a kinsman, sir, from whom I hoped much for my son; to-day I learn that he is lost—­ dead, most like—­and those hopes with him.  He was my brother, and God—­who understands mothers, and knows, moreover, how small was ever Samuel Annesley’s kindness—­must forgive me that I grieved less for him than for Charles’s sake.  The tale was brought us by the honest man who has just left, and it is scarcely told when another kinsman enters and lays his fortune in Charles’s hands.  Therefore I thank God for His goodness and”—­her voice wavered and she ended with a frank laugh at her own expense—­“you, on your part, may read the quality of the gratitude to expect from me.  At least I have been honest, sir.”

“Ma’am, I have lived long enough to value honesty above gratitude.  I make this offer to please myself.  The point is, Do I understand that you accept?”