you, and might have made you happy, if I had cut my throat two years ago."

"Walter, how can you be so cruel?"

"Read St. Just's letter. A dying man has privileges. Read his letter, and decide upon the answer."

He gave her the letter, bent down to kiss her as she sat at the breakfast-table, with her head leaning on her hand, and then went quietly from the room, before her tears came, and she broke down altogether.

She had promised not to think him mad-not mad! But if he were perfectly sane, as she strove to believe, what was this mental trouble which he dared not tell her, and which had made an end of his happiness and hers? What was this influence which had made life hell? The change in him was palpable enough; but what of the impalpable, the unknown cause? What could that be but some morbid affection of the mind, some disease of the imagination, which physicians call madness?

It was long before she was able to control her troubled thoughts, and to fix her attention upon St. Just's letter.

MY DEAR ARDEN,

Terminus Hotel, Marseilles.

You will, perhaps, be surprised that this letter should be addressed to you, instead of to your wife, to whom I have written from time to time during my wanderings in search of sunshine and calm seas; but I have a request to make which must be made in the first instance to you. I want you to bring her to me in my Cornish home, that may bid farewell to the friend who has been more to me than any one in this world since my mother died. I want to see her for the last time in the home of my childhood, the place I have loved better than any other spot on earth; as I have cherished her friendship more than that of any other friend.

I

It is a selfish desire, perhaps; and I ought rather to halt in London, on my last earthly journey, and say goodbye to you and your wife in your own house. But doomed men have a certain privilege of self-indulgence, and all the world is kind to them. I know you will be kind; and even more surely can I count on her kindness.

My days are numbered. When I leave Marseilles tonight with my doctor, I shall be carried to my bed in the train, carried from the train to the boat to-morrow evening, carried from station to station, like a dead thing, till I lie down to rest in the room where my father died, amidst the voices of the sea and the winds, blowing across the moorland where I was reared. I have made my doctor tell me the worst about myself, in spite of the professional anxiety to maintain hope even where the end is certain. He does not promise me many days after my arrival in Cornwall, if I live through the journey. He wanted to take me to some sheltered spot in Auvergne, or to Aix in Savoy, rather than to let me risk so long a pilgrimage. But my heart is set upon dying at home among the old familiar faces of servants and tenants, and to lie asleep in the shadow of the church tower that was my landmark in my rides and rambles, when I was a boy.

Will you bring your wife to Trevelyan, my dear Arden, and let me see the face that has been my dream of womanly kindness and pity, when my eyes are growing dim? I know that she will not refuse to visit my death-bed; for her Divine compassion would gratify the dying wish of the vilest sinner among Romney's flock. If you consent, I would beg you to start soon after you receive this letter, as I ought to be at Trevelyan within ten or twelve hours of its delivery; and who knows how long I may be found there? Ever faithfully yours,

ST. JUST.

XXI.

DARKNESS had closed over moor and sea, when the carriage that had brought Mr. and Mrs. Arden from the station drove along the avenue of beech and oak that wound uphill to Trevelyan Manor House; and through the open window the travellers could feel the salt breath of the sea, and hear the distant roar of the waves rolling into the caverns and hollows of that wild north coast. The house stood on a ridge of hill within a mile of the sea-a stone house, built when the last of the Tudors was nearing her end, and added to in the time of Charles the First; a house with a priest's hole, and a family ghost, which, being a purely domestic invention, hatched in the servants' hall, and developed between the butler's pantry and the housekeeper's room, had suffered many changes of circumstance and character-nay, even changes of sex; sometimes described as an infirm old man in a brown Georgian suit, anon vouched for by eye-witnesses as a lovely young woman in ruff and farthingale.

Rachel's eyes searched the rolling stretch of turf, and the wind-driven oaks. A young moon looked out fitfully from a sky darkened by ragged clouds, and all seemed chill and dreary in the uncertain light.

A curtain of gloom falls over a house whose master lies dying; an influence subtle as a supernatural presence; and this house of Trevelyan had the gloom of past ages-the dark centuries when religious persecution and civil war made a hiding-place as necessary for hunted human creatures as a hole in the earth for the hunted fox. All that well-trained servants could do to prepare comfort and cheerfulness for the visitors had been done; and the architectural beauty of the hall and corridors, the carved ceilings and tapestried

walls, appealed to Walter Arden's sense of the beautiful, and his love of the past. But the gloom was there all the same, in spite of blazing wood-fires, and many candles in old silver candelabra, and a dinner-table brightened by the deep purple and gold of old Worcester china, and the pale roses of spring, grown under glass.

The grey-haired housekeeper, in rustling black silk, was waiting in the hall when the travellers alighted; and it was to her Rachel turned, pale and expectant, with tremulous lips

"Is Lord St. Just here?"

"Yes, ma'am; his lordship arrived three hours ago, by the eleven o'clock train from Waterloo. He is sitting up in his room; and he would like to see you and Mr. Arden before he goes to bed."

"Is he worse for the long journey?”

"Oh, ma'am, he is very, very bad. I'm afraid he will soon start on a longer journey; but the Lord's word will be a lantern unto his feet and a light unto his path. He has been a saint on earth, and he will soon be among the saints in heaven," the old woman said, with streaming eyes. "Take me to his room, please, Mrs. Roper."

"You have heard my name, ma'am? His lordship has spoken of me?"

"Often and often. You were a part of his childhood." "I loved him dearly, ma'am; but that's no merit. We all love him. Only I was his nurse, you see; and it was because he was so fond of me that I got promoted to be housekeeper. He didn't want me to leave the family, or to drop into a pensioner; and, as her ladyship's housekeeper was leaving on account of ill-health, I was given her place, though I had no experience in the management of a large establishment. There never was a sweeter child-or a nobler boy-or a better man. Though I'm a Bible Christian myself, and don't hold with his lordship's Church, I can reverence one who has shown himself a true disciple of Christ."

The length of the corridor gave an opportunity for the old servant's garrulous tongue; and Rachel was touched by the genuine affection indicated by the broken voice and uncontrollable tears.

The door of St. Just's room opened as they drew near. Lightly as their steps sounded on the thick carpet, he had heard the footfall for which he had been listening and longing. He had found Arden's telegram in the hall when he arrived" We are starting by the afternoon train❞—and he had counted the minutes till the first possible moment at which they could arrive. And from that moment his

impatience had been at fever height.

The hectic flush upon the sunken cheeks, and the eager look in the too brilliant eyes, startled Rachel. Could those be dying eyes that gazed at her with an intense vitality which she had never seen in them before? Could the flame of life burn so fiercely on the verge of extinction ?

Speech failed him in his agitation. He pointed to the vacant chair at his side with a radiant smile; and then she heard a faintly whispered, "This is kind."

He was half lying in a large armchair, a hospital nurse standing beside him, and his valet in the background. The room was larger than modern bedrooms. The low ceiling, supported by black oak beams, and the dark tapestry, gave an impression of unspeakable gloom to a mind overshadowed by impending sorrow.

The candles on the high mantelpiece gave less light than the logs burning on the hearth; and in the alternations of leaping flame and dull red glow Rachel had not seen the doctor till he came out of the shadows at the end of the room.

"Nurse and I will leave you with Lord St. Just for five or ten minutes, Mrs. Arden," he said quietly; "but you must not let him talk much, please."

The nurse showed her the restorative which might be given if there were signs of fainting. Eau de Cologne, smelling-salts, everything was ready on the table by his chair, with the little pile of books that had been his comforters in the long hours of weakness and decay.

"It was very good of Arden to bring you," St. Just said, when they were alone. "Can you forgive me for summoning you to this last dismal scene? Yes, I know you will forgive; you have often looked upon sickness and death; you have comforted other death-beds."