The Jap caught the extended palm in his own two hands and bent over it.  He was not weeping and he was not talking, but he stood with his head lowered until only the wiry black hair was visible, and in his throat rose guttural and incoherent noises like groans.

“I can’t show my appreciation as I’d like,” said Paul.  “The day for that is gone, but there are some clothes that I didn’t pack.  I left them for you—­” Even in an hour which called for defense of every penny, Paul was still the impractical man whose open heart and affectionate nature called for expression.  “And this—­” he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a watch upon which any pawnbroker would have advanced a goodly sum—­“this was Hamilton’s.”  His voice broke as he held it out.  “I think he would like you to have it.  His will left you twenty thousand dollars—­but—­well, you know.”

Yamuro straightened up.  He raised both hands in a gesture of protest and his words came fast and vehemently.

“No, no!  Thanks ver’ mutch—­no—­no!  You great artist—­you not un’stand making money.  You need.  Mother—­sister—­father all need.  No—­please!”

He halted; then in a deep embarrassment, went on.  “Me got money in bank.  Me not want be impert’nent, but—­” He paused, seeking a disguised and delicate fashion of volunteering aid and looked appealingly into the other’s face for assistance.

Fresh tears welled into Paul’s eyes.  “I understand you, Yamuro,” he said, laying a hand on the stocky shoulder.  “No, Yamuro, you have done enough—­God bless you!” He could not trust himself further and so he turned abruptly and left the room.

These rooms in the twisting by-ways of picturesque old Greenwich Village seemed mean and tawdry to their new tenants, but they were very good as compared with what Mary knew must follow.  The pitiful store of money which her last-stand financiering had raked together would not be renewed when spent, nor would it last long.  It was only that they might have a temporary refuge in which to think out the future that the girl had chosen these quarters.

Then very shortly came the day when the house that had been the home of the elder Burtons also went under the hammer, and an unconquerable magnetism drew Paul to the spot though he knew the place would be filled with people who, to him, must seem pillagers.  He had nerved himself to ask a thing for which he had been longing ever since those doors had closed upon him.  In that house was the Pagan temple which his brother had built for his shrine of dreams and the organ which might have graced a cathedral.  If they would allow him ten minutes there alone—­ten minutes to finger the keys for the last time—­at least he meant to ask it.  It was a much changed man who presented himself diffidently at a house to which the public had been invited by the commissioner’s advertisement.  His clothes were already beginning to indicate his deteriorated condition though, thanks to Mary’s care, they were scrupulously neat.  The things to be sold this morning could find purchasers only among the very rich, and for that precise reason the occasion had attracted a horde of people who came as they might have gone to a fire or to a museum.  Paul Burton found it easy enough to meet these eyes.  It was when he encountered the gaze of old associates that he shrunk and trembled.