If Solomon himself, half starved and imbecile with despair, had suddenly presented himself from his living tomb, Richard could not have been more astonished than at the appearance of his present visitor. He had left her but three days ago for Midlandshire. How was it possible she had tracked him hither? With what purpose she had done so he did not ask himself, for he had already read it in her haggard face and hopeless eyes.
"Have I come too late?" moaned she in a piteous, terror-stricken voice.
"For breakfast?—yes, madam," returned Richard, coldly; "but that can easily be remedied;" and he feigned to touch the bell. His heart was steel again; this woman's fear and care he felt were for his enemy, and for him alone. It was plain she had no longer fear of himself.
"Where is my husband?" she gasped out. "Is he still alive?"
"I am not your husband's keeper, madam."
"But you are his murderer!" She held out her arm, and pointed at him with a terrible significance. There was something clasped in her trembling fingers which he could not discern.
"You speak in riddles, madam; and it seems to me your humor is somewhat grim."
"I ask you once more, is my husband dead, and have I come too late?"
"I have not seen him for some days; I left him alive and well. What makes you think him otherwise, or that I have harmed him?"
"This"—she advanced toward him, keeping her eyes steadily fixed upon his own—"this was found among your things after you left my house!"
It was a ticket-of-leave—the one that had been given to Balfour on his discharge from Lingmoor. It seemed impossible that Richard's colorless face could have become still whiter, but it did so.
"Yes, that is mine," said he. "It was an imprudence in me to leave such a token among curious people. You took an interest in my effects, it seems."
"It was poor Mrs. Basil who found it, and who gave it to me." Her voice was calm, and even cold; but the phrase "poor Mrs. Basil" alarmed him.
"The good lady is still unwell, then, is she?"
"She is dead."
"Dead!" Richard staggered to a chair, and pressed his hands to his forehead. The only creature in the world on whom his slender hopes were built had, then, departed from it! "When did she die?" inquired he in a hollow voice, "and how?"
"On the evening of the day you left, and, as I believe, of a disease which one like you will scarcely credit—of a broken heart."
Her manner and tone were hostile; but that moved not Richard one whit; the cold and measured tones in which she had alluded to his mother's death angered him, on the other hand, exceedingly. If his mother had died of a broken heart, it was this woman's falsehood that had broken it; and yet she could speak with calmness and unconcern of the loss which had left him utterly forlorn! He forgot all his late remorse; and in his eyes glittered malice and cruel rage.
"I do not fear you," cried she, in answer to this look; "for the wretched have no fear. The hen will do battle with the fox, the rabbit with the stoat, to save her young. If I can not save my husband, I will save my son. I have come down here to do it. You are known to me now for what you are—a jail-bird. If you dare to meet my Charley's honest face again, I will tell him who and what you are."
"Did Mrs. Basil tell you that, then?"
"Thus far she did," cried Harry, pointing to the ticket which Richard had taken from her hand. "Is not that enough? She warned me with her latest breath against you. 'Beware of him,' said she; 'and yet pursue him, if you would save your husband and your son. Where Solomon is, there will this man also be. Pursue, pursue!' I did but stay to close her eyes."
"And so she knew me, did she?"
"She knew enough, as I do. Of course she could not guess—who could?—your shameful past, the fruit of which is there!" and again she pointed to the ticket.
"Myshameful past!" cried Richard, rising and drawing himself to his full height. "Who are you, that dare to say so? Do you, then, need one to rise from the dead to remind you ofyourpast! Look at me, Harry Trevethick—look atme!"
"Richard!" It was but one word; but in the tone which she pronounced it a thousand memories seemed to mingle. An inexpressible awe pervaded her; she stood spell-bound, staring at his white hair and withered face.
"Yes, itisRichard," answered the other, mockingly, "though it is hard to think so. Twenty years of wretchedness have worked the change. It is you he has to thank for it, you perjured traitress!"
"No, no; as Heaven is my judge, Richard, I tell you No!" She threw herself on her knees before him; and as she did so her bonnet fell, and the rippling hair that he had once stroked so tenderly escaped from its bands; the color came into her cheeks, and the light into her eyes, with the passionate excitement of her appeal; and for the moment she looked almost as he had known her in the far-back spring-tide of her youth.
"Fair and false as ever!" cried Richard, bitterly.
"Listen, listen!" pleaded she; "then call me what you will."
He sat in silence while she poured forth all the story of the trial, and of the means by which her evidence had been obtained, listening at first with a cold, cynical smile, like one who is prepared for falsehood, and beyond its power; but presently he drooped his head and hid his features. She knew that she had persuaded him of her fidelity, but feared that behind those wrinkled hands there still lay a ruthless purpose. She had exculpated herself, but only (of necessity) by showing in blacker colors the malice of his enemies. She knew that he had sworn to destroy them root and branch; and there was one green bough which he had already done his worst to bend to evil ways. "Richard, Richard!" said she, softly.
He withdrew his chair with a movement which she mistook for one of loathing.
"He hates me for their sake," thought she, "although he knows me to be innocent. How much more must he hate those who made me seem so guilty!" But, in truth, his withdrawal from her touch had a very different explanation. He would have kissed her, and held out both his hands, but for the blood which he dreaded might be even now upon them. He saw that she loved him still, and had ever done so, even when she seemed his foe: all the old affection that he thought had been dead within him awoke to life, and yet he dared not give it voice.
"You have said my husband was alive and well, Richard?"
"I said I had left him so," answered he, hoarsely.
"Then you have spared him thus far; spare him still, even for my sake; and, for Heaven's sake, spare my son! Harden not your heart against one more dear to me by far than life itself. He has done you no wrong."
Richard shook his head; he yearned to clasp her to his breast; he could have cried, "I forgive them all," but he could not trust himself to speak, lest he should say, "I love you."
"You have seen my boy, Richard, many times. The friendship you have simulated for him must have made you know how warm-hearted and kind and unsuspicious his nature is. You have listened to his merry laugh, and felt the sunshine of his gayety. Oh! can you have the heart to harm him?"
Still he did not speak; he scarcely heard her words. The murdered man was standing between her and him; and he would always stand there, seen by him, though not by her. From the grave itself he had come forth to triumph over him to the end.
"Richard"—her voice had sunk to a tremulous whisper—"I must save my son, and save you from yourself, no matter what it costs me. You little know on the brink of what a crime you stand."
He laughed a bitter laugh; for was he not already steeped in crime? She thought him pitiless and malignant when he was only hopeless and self-condemned.
"Do you remember Gethin, Richard, and all that happened there? Can you not guess why I was made to marry—within—what was it?—a month, a week, a day—it seemed but the next hour—after I lost you? You have had twenty years of misery for my sake; but so have I for yours. Did my husband love me, think you? Did he love my child? He had good cause, if he had only known, to hate us both. Can you not guess it?"
He looked at her with eager hope—a trembling joy pervaded him. But hope and joy had been strangers to him so long that he could scarce recognize them for what they were.
"My Charley is yours also, Richard—your own son."
Richard burst into tears. There was somebody still to love him in the world—his own flesh and blood—somebody to live for! The thought intoxicated him with delight; a vision of happiness floated before him for an instant; then was swallowed up in darkness, as a single star by the gloom of night. His own flesh and blood; ay, perhaps inheriting the same nature as his father. It was only too likely, from what he had seen of the lad; and he had himself done his best to develop the evil in him, and to crush the good.
"Don't weep, dear Richard: kiss me."
He shrank from her proffered lips with a cold shudder. "Nay, I can not kiss you. Do not ask me why, Harry. Never ask me; but I never can."
She looked at him with wonder, for she saw that his wrath had vanished. His tone was tender, though woeful, and his touch as he put her aside was as gentle as a child's.
"As you please, Richard," said she, humbly, and with a deep blush. "I only wished for it as a token of your forgiveness. It is not necessary; those tears have told me we are reconciled. But you will kiss Charley."
"Nay; he must never know," answered Richard gloomily.
"I had forgotten," said Harry, simply. "You can guess by that the loyalty of my heart toward you, Richard. I forgot that to reveal it would be to tell my darling of his mother's shame. But you will be kind and good to him; you will undo what you have done of harm; you will lead him back to Agnes, and then he will be safe."
"Yes, yes," muttered Richard, mechanically; "I will undo so far as I can what I have done of harm. I will do my best, as I have done my worst."
He rose hastily, and rang the bell. Harry eyed him like some attached creature that sympathizes with but can not comprehend its master.
The waiter entered.
"I shall not go by the train," said Richard; "let a carriage and pair be brought round instantly, without a moment's delay."
The waiter hurried out to execute the order.
"But you will surely return home, Richard, after what has happened?" said Harry, thinking of his mother's funeral.
"The dead can wait," returned he, solemnly. "Go you back to town. In three days' time, if you do not hear from me, come down to Gethin with Charles and Agnes."
"But I dare not, unless my husband send for me."
"Hewillsend for you," said Richard, solemnly; "or others will in his behalf."
Without one word or sign of farewell he suddenly rushed by her, and was gone. A carriage stood at the front-door of the hotel, which had just returned from taking a bride and bridegroom to the railway station, and she saw him hurry into it.
"Fast! fast!" she heard him cry, through the open window; and then he was whirled away.
Richard had many subjects for thought to beguile his lonely way to Gethin, but one was paramount, and absorbed the rest, though he strove to dismiss it all he could.
He endeavored to think of his dead mother. His heart was full of her patient love and weary, childless life; but her portrait faded from his mind like a dissolving view, and in its place stood that of Solomon Coe, haggard, emaciated, hideous. Still less could he think of Harry and her son, between whom and himself this spectre of the unhappy man rose up at once, summoned by the thought of them, as by a spell. It did not occur to Richard even now that he had had no right to kill him; but he shuddered to think, if he had really done so, how this late opening flower of love which he had just discovered would blossom into fear and loathing. In that case his heart would have been softened only to be pierced. His mother's death, the knowledge of Harry's fidelity, and of the existence of his son, to whom his affection had been already drawn, unknowingly and in spite of himself, had dissolved his cruel purpose. He was eager to spare his mother's memory the shame of the foul crime he had contemplated, and passionately anxious that in the veins of his new-found son there should at least run no murderer's blood.
"Faster! faster!" was still his cry, though the horses galloped whenever it was practicable, and the wheels cast the winter's mire into his eager face. This haste was made, as he well knew, upon the road to his own ruin. To find Solomon alive was to be accused of having compassed his death. There was no hope in the magnanimity of such a foe. But yesterday Richard had cared little or nothing for his own safety, and was only bent upon the prosecution of his scheme against his foe; now life had mysteriously become dear to him, and he was about to risk it in saving the man he had hated most on earth from the doom to which he had himself consigned him. He had calculated the possibilities which were in his own favor, and they had resolved themselves into this single chance—that Solomon might be induced, by the unconditional offer of Wheal Danes and its golden treasure, to forego his revenge. His greed was great; but his malice, as Richard had good cause to know, was also not easily satisfied. Moreover, even if his victim should decline to be his prosecutor, he would still stand in great peril. It was only too probable that he would be recognized at Gethin for the stranger that had so lately been staying at Turlock; he had not, indeed, mentioned his assumed name at the latter place; but his lack of interest in the fate of Solomon—whose disappearance had been narrated to him by the waitress—and his departure from the town under such circumstances, would (in case of his identification) be doubtless contrasted with this post-haste journey of his to deliver this same man. He had made up his mind, however, to neglect no precautions to avoid this contingency. It would be dark when he got to Gethin; and his purpose once accomplished he might easily escape recognition, unless he should be denounced by Solomon himself. In that case Richard was fully determined that he would glut no more the curiosity of the crowd. He would never stand in the prisoner's dock, or be consigned again to stone walls. The gossips should have a dead man's face to gaze at, and welcome; they might make what sport they pleased of that, but not again of his living agony. Then, instead of his being Solomon's murderer, he would be his victim. To judge by his present feeling, thought Richard, bitterly, this man would not enjoy his triumph even then. Revenge, as his mother had once told him, was like a game of battle-door—it is never certain who gets the last stroke. If Solomon was now dead, starved skeleton or rat-eaten corpse as he might be, Richard felt that he would still have had the advantage over him.
"What is it? Why are we stopping?" cried he, frantically, as the man pulled up on the top of a hill.
"Let me breathe the horses for an instant," pleaded the driver; "we shall gain time in the end."
"How far are we still from Gethin?" inquired Richard, impatiently.
"In time, two hours, Sir, for the road is bad, though me and the horses will do our best; but the distance is scarce twelve miles. Do you see that black thing out to seaward yonder? That's the castled rock. He stands out fine against the sunset, don't he?"
"Yes, yes; make haste;" and on they sped again at a gallop.
Within a mile or two of this spot Richard had first caught sight of that same object twenty years ago. The occasion flashed upon him with every minutest circumstance, even to the fact of how hungry he had been at the moment. The world was all before him then, and life was young. Now, prematurely aged, his interest centred in three human beings, and one of those was his bitter enemy.
The dusk thickened into dark; and the tired horses—for the stage had been a very long one—made but slow way.
"Faster! faster!" was Richard's constant cry, till the brow of the last hill was gained, and the scanty lights of Gethin showed themselves. Then it suddenly struck him for the first time what unnecessary speed had been made. Why, this man, Solomon, strong and inured to privation, had, after all, been but eight-and-forty hours in the mine, and would surely be alive, unless the rats had killed him. Where had he somewhere read of a strong man overpowered in a single night by a legion of rats, and discovered a heap of clean-picked bones by morning?
The inn, as usual at that season, showed few signs of life; but there were some half dozen miners drinking at the bar.
"Keep those men," said Richard to the inn-keeper; for Solomon had long delegated that office to another, though his own name was still over the door, and theGethin Castlewas still his home. "I shall want their help to-night."
"Their help, Sir?" said the astonished landlord.
"Yes; but say nothing for the present. Bring me a bottle of brandy and some meat—cold chicken, if you have it; then let me have a word with you."
Richard did not order the food for himself. While it was being brought he sat down in the very chair that he had used so often—for he had been ushered into his old parlor—and gazed about him. There were the same tawdry ornaments on the mantel-piece, and the same books on the dusty shelf. Nothing was altered except the tenant of that room; but how great a change had taken place inhim! What a face the dingy mirror offered him in place of that which it had shown him last! When the inn-keeper returned his mind involuntarily conjured up old Trevethick, as he had received from him the key of the ruin, and doggedly taken his compliments upon its workmanship. Truly, "there is no such thing as forgetting;" and to recall our past to its minutest details at the judgment-day will not be so impracticable as some of us would desire.
Richard had made up his mind exactly as to what he would say to this man, but a question suddenly presented itself, which had been absent from his thoughts from the moment that he had resolved to rescue his enemy. It was a very simple one, too, and would have occurred to any one else, as it had done already many times to himself.
"Has Mr. Coe been found yet?"
He listened for the answer eagerly, for if such was the case, not only was his journey useless, but had brought him into the very jaws of destruction. He would have thrown away his life for nothing.
"No, Sir, indeed—and he never will be," replied the inn-keeper. "When the sea don't give a man up in four-and-twenty hours, it keeps him for good—at least we always find it so at Gethin."
"Well, listen to me. My name is Balfour. I knew Mr. Coe, and have had dealings with him. We had arranged a partnership together in a certain mine; and it is my opinion that he came down here upon that business."
"Very like, Sir. He was much engaged that way, and made, they say, a pretty penny at it."
"I was at Plymouth, on my way to join him, when I heard this sad news. I came to-day post-haste in consequence of it. The search for him must be renewed to-night."
"Lor, Sir, it is easy to see you are a stranger in these parts! I wouldn't like to go myself where poor Mr. Coe met his end, on so dark a night as this. It's a bad path even in daylight along Turlock cliff."
"He did not take that way, at least I think not. Have you a ladder about the premises?"
"Yes, sure."
"And a lantern?"
"Now that's strange enough, Sir, that you should have inquired for a lantern; for we wanted one just now to see to your horses, and, though they're looking for it high and low, it can't be found nowhere."
"It doesn't strike you, then, that Mr. Coe might have taken it with him?"
"Lor, Sir," cried the inn-keeper, with admiration, "and so he must ha' done! Of course it strikes one when the thing has been put into one's head. Well, 'twas a good lantern, and now 'tis lost. Dear me, dear me!"
Golden visions of succeeding to the management of the inn, and of taking to the furniture and fixings in the gross, had flitted across this honest gentleman's brain, and the disappearance of the lantern affected him with the acute sense of pecuniary damage. The general valuation would probably be no less because of the absence of this article.
"Send out and borrow another, as many, in fact, as you can get," saidRichard, impatiently; "and get ready a torch or two besides. Pick outfour of the strongest men yonder, and bid them come with me, and searchWheal Danes."
"What! that old pit. Sir? You'll not find a man to do it—no, not if they knowed as master was at the bottom of it. You wait till morning."
"Your masterisat the bottom of it. I feel sure he took the lantern with him to search that mine. I will give them a pound apiece to start at once. Pack up this food, and lend them a mattress to bring him home upon. Be quick! be quick!"
Richard's energy fairly overpowered the phlegmatic inn-keeper, whose conscience, perhaps, also smote him with respect to his missing master; and he set about the execution of these orders promptly. Wheal Danes, he had truly hinted, was a very unpopular spot with its neighbors after nightfall; but, on the other hand, sovereigns were rare in Gethin, and greatly prized. In less than half an hour the necessaries which Richard had indicated were procured, and a party, consisting of himself, four stalwart miners, and the inn-keeper, started for the pit. These were followed by half the inhabitants of the little village, attracted by the rumor of their purpose, which had oozed out from the bar of theGethin Castle. The windy down had probably never known so strange a concourse as that which presently streamed over it, with torch and lantern, and stood around the mouth of the disused mine. The night was dark, and nothing could be seen save what the flare of the lights they carried showed them—a jagged rim of pit without a bottom. Notwithstanding their numbers there was but little talk among them; they had a native dread of this dismal place, and, besides, there might now be a ghastly secret hidden within it. A muffled exclamation, half of admiration, half of awe, broke from the circling crowd as, the ladder planted, Richard was seen descending it torch in hand. No other man followed; none had volunteered, and he had asked for no companion. They watched him, as the countrymen of those who had formerly worked Wheal Danes might have watched Curtius when he leaped into the gulf; and as inhiscase, when they saw the ladder removed, and the light grow dim, and finally die out before their eyes, it seemed that the pit had closed on Richard—that he was swallowed up alive. No one, unless the strange story about their missing neighbor which this man had brought was true, had ventured into Wheal Danes for these fifty years! They kept an awe-struck silence, straining eye and ear. Some thought they could still see a far-off glimmer, others that they could hear a stifled cry, when the less fortunate or the less imaginative could hear or see nothing. But after a little darkness and silence reigned supreme beneath them; they seemed standing on the threshold of a tomb.
A full half hour—which to the watchers above seemed a much longer interval—had elapsed since Richard had disappeared in the depths of Wheal Danes, and not a sign of his return had reached the attentive throng.
"I thought he'd come to harm," muttered a fisherman to his neighbor; "it was a sin and a shame to let him venture."
"Ay, you may say that," returned the other, aloud. "I call it downright murder in them as sent him."
"It was not I as sent him," observed the inn-keeper, with the honest indignation of a man that has not right habitually on his own side. "WhatIsaid to the gentleman was, 'Wait till morning.' Why shouldIsend him?" Here he stopped, though his reasons for not wishing to hurry matters would have been quite conclusive.
"Why was he let to go down at all, being a stranger?" resumed the first speaker. "Why didn't somebody show him the way?"
"Because nobody knowed it," answered one of the four miners whose services Richard had retained, and who justly imagined that the fisherman's remark had been a reflection on his own profession. "I'd ha' gone down Dunloppel with him at midnight, or any other mine as can be called such; but this is different."
"Ay, ay, that's so," said a second miner. "We know no more of this place than you fishermen. There may be as much water in it as in the sea, for aught we can tell."
"It's my belief they're more afraid of the Dead Hand than the water," observed a voice from the crowd, the great majority of which was composed of fisher folk.
No reply was given to this; perhaps because the speaker, an old cripple, the Thersites of the village, was beneath notice, perhaps because the remark was unanswerable. The miners were bold enough against material enemies, but they were superstitious to a man.
"If Solomon Coe were alive," continued the same voice, "he wouldn't ha' feared nothin'."
"That's the first word, old man, as ever I heard you speak in his favor," said a miner, contemptuously; "and you've waited for that till he's dead."
"Still, he would ha' gone, and you durstn't," observed the old fellow, cunningly, "and that's the p'int."
These allusions to the Dead Hand and to the missing Solomon were not of a nature to inspire courage in those to whom it was already lacking, and a silence again ensued. There was less light, for a torch or two had gone out, and the mine looked blacker than ever.
"Well, who's a-going down?" croaked the old cripple. "The gentleman came from your inn, Jonathan, and it's your place, I should think, to look after him."
"Certainly not," answered the inn-keeper, hastily. "These men here were hired for this very service."
"That's true," said the first miner. "But what's the use of talking when the gentleman has got the ladder with him?"
"There's more ladders in the world than one," observed the cripple. "Here's my grandson, John; he and half a dozen of these young fellows would fetch Farmer Gray's in less than no time. Come, lads—be off with ye."
This suggestion was highly applauded, except by the miner who had so injudiciously compromised himself, and was carried out at once.
When the ladder arrived the three other miners, ashamed of deserting their comrade, volunteered to descend with him. The excitement among the spectators was great, indeed, when these four men disappeared in the levels of Wheal Danes, as Richard had done before them. The light of their combined torches lingered a little in their rear; the sound of their voices, as they halloed to one another or to the missing man, was heard for several minutes. But darkness and silence swallowedthemup also, and the watchers gazed on one another aghast.
It is not an easy thing, even for those accustomed to underground labor, to search an unfamiliar spot by torch-light; the fitful gleam makes the objects on which it falls difficult of identification. It is doubtful whether one has seen this or that before or not—whether we are not retracing old ground. Even to practiced eyes these objects, too, are not so salient as the tree or the stone which marks a locality above-ground; add to this, in the present case, that the searchers were momently in expectation of coming upon something which they sought and yet feared to find, and it will be seen that their progress was of necessity but slow. They kept together, too, as close as sheep, which narrowed the compass of their researches, and caused their combined torches to distribute only as much light as one man would have done provided with a chandelier. They knew, however, that their predecessor had descended into the second level, so that they did not need to explore the first at all. The ground was hard, and gave forth echoes to their cautious but heavy tread; their cries of "Hollo!" "Are you there?" which they reiterated, like nervous children playing hide-and-seek, reverberated from roof to wall.
Presently, when they stopped to listen for these voices of the rock to cease, there was heard a human moan. It seemed to come up from a great depth out of the darkness before them. They listened earnestly, and the sound was repeated—the faint cry of a man in grievous pain.
"There must be another level," observed the miner who had volunteered the search. "This man has fallen down it."
They had therefore to go back for the ladder. Pushing this before them, the end began presently to run freely, and then stopped; it had adjusted itself by the side of the shorter ladder which Richard had brought down with him.
"He could not have fallen, then," observed a miner, answering his comrade's remark—as is the custom with this class of great doers and small talkers—at a considerable interval.
"Yes, he could," replied the one who had first spoken. "See, his ladder was short, and he may have pitched over."
They stood and listened, peering down into the darkness beneath them; but there was no repetition of the cries. The wounded man had apparently spent his last strength, perhaps his last breath, in uttering them.
"He must be down here somewhere. Come on."
The situation was sufficiently appalling; but these men had lost half their terrors, now that they knew there was a fellow-creature needing help. They descended slowly; and he who was foremost presently cried out, "I see him; here he is."
The man was lying on his face quite still; and when they lifted him, each looked at the other with a grave significance—they had carried too many from the bowels of the earth to the pit's mouth not to know when a man was dead. Even a senseless body is not the same to an experienced bearer as a dead weight. The corpse was still warm, but the head fell back with a movement not of life.
"You were right, mate. His neck is broke; the poor gentleman pitched over on his head."
"Stop a bit," exclaimed the man addressed; "see here. Why, it ain't him at all—it's Solomon Coe."
An exclamation of astonishment burst involuntarily from the other three.
"Then where's the other?" cried they all together.
"I am here," answered a ghastly whisper.
Within but a few feet of Solomon, so that they could hardly have overlooked him had not the former monopolized their attention, lay Richard, grievously hurt. Some ribs were broken, and one of them was pressed in upon the lungs. Still he was alive, and the men turned their attention first to him, since Solomon was beyond their aid. By help of the two ladders, side by side, they bore him up the wall of rock; and so from level to level—a tedious and painful journey to the wounded man—to the upper air.
He was carried to the inn upon the mattress which his own care had provided for another; while the four miners, to the amazement of the throng, once more descended into the pit for a still more ghastly burden.
Richard could speak a little, though with pain. By his orders a messenger was dispatched that night to Plymouth to telegraph the news of the discovery of her husband's body to Mrs. Coe. His next anxiety was to hear the surgeon's report, not on his own condition, but on that of Solomon. This gentleman did not arrive for some hours, and Richard was secretly well pleased at his delay. It was his hope, for a certain reason, that he would not arrive until the body was stiff and cold.
He saw Richard first, of course. The case was very serious; so much so that he thought it right to mention the fact, in order that his patient might settle his worldly affairs if they needed settlement.
"There is no immediate danger, my good Sir; but it is always well in such cases to have the mind free from anxiety."
"I understand; it is quite right," said Richard, gravely. "Moreover, since the opportunity may not occur again, let me now state how it all happened."
"Nay, you must not talk. We know it all, or at least enough of it for the present."
"What do you know?" asked Richard, with his eyes half shut, but with eager ears.
"That in your benevolent attempt to seek after Mr. Coe you met with the same accident—though I trust it will not have the same ending—as that unfortunate gentleman himself. He pitched upon his head and broke his neck, while you fell upon your side."
"That is so," murmured Richard. "He and I were partners, you see—"
"There, there; not a word more," insisted the doctor; "your deposition can wait."
And having done what he could for his patient, he left him, in order to examine the unfortunate Solomon. His investigation corroborated all that he had already heard of the circumstances of his death, with which also Richard's evidence accorded. An observation made by one of the miners who had found the body, to the effect that it was yet warm when they had come upon it, excited the surgeon's ridicule.
"It is now Tuesday morning, my friend," said he, "and this poor fellow met with his death on Saturday night for certain. He could not, therefore, have been much warmer when you found him than he is now."
"Well, me and my mate here we both fancied—"
"I dare say you did, my man," interrupted the doctor; "and fancy is a very proper word to apply to such an impression. If you take my advice, however, you will not repeat such a piece of evidence when put upon your oath, for the thing is simply impossible."
"Then I suppose we be in the wrong," said Dick to Jack; and on that supposition they acted.
In this way too self-reliant Science, whose mission it is to explode fallacies, occasionally assists in the explosion or suffocation of a fact, for Solomon Coe had not been dead half an hour when his body was found.
When Richard, alone on his errand of mercy, was approaching the brink of the third level, he could hear Solomon calling lustily for help. Nay, it was not only "Help!" but "Murder!" that he cried out; and notwithstanding the menace that that word implied toward himself, Richard hurried on, well pleased to hear it; the vigor of the cry assured him that his enemy was not only living, but unhurt. As the light he carried grew more distinct to him, indeed, these shouts redoubled; but when it came quite near, and disclosed the features of its bearer, there was a dead silence. The two men stood confronting one another—the one in light, distinctly seen, looking down upon the other in shade, just as they had parted only eight-and-forty hours ago. To one of them, as we know, this space had been eventful; but to the other it had seemed a lifetime—an age of hopes and fears, and latterly of cold despair, which had now been warmed once more to hope only to freeze again. For was not this man, to whom he had looked for aid, his cruel foe come back to taunt him—to behold him already half-way toward death, and to make its slow approach more bitter? But great as was his agony Solomon held his peace, nor offered to this monarch of his fate the tribute of a groan.
"I am come to rescue you," said Richard, in low but distinct tones; "to undo the evil that I have already done, although it was no less than you deserved, nor an overpayment of the debt I owed you. In return you will doubtless denounce me as having meant to murder you."
No answer. If Richard had not heard his cries, it would have seemed that this poor wretch had lost the power of speech. His huge head drooped upon his shoulder, and he leaned against the rocky wall as though his limbs could not have otherwise supported themselves; they shook, indeed—but was it with weakness or with hate?—as though he had the palsy.
"Well, you will have reason to do so," continued Richard, calmly, "for I did mean to murder you. In ten minutes hence you will find yourself among your neighbors, free to act as you please. I shall make no appeal to your mercy; it would, I know, be as fruitless as was yours to mine the other day; but if you abstain from molesting me, this mine, with all its hidden treasure, shall be your own. I have nothing more to say."
Solomon answered nothing. "Perhaps," thought Richard, "he still doubts me.—Well, here is the ladder;" and he suited the action to the word. Solomon's great hand flew out from his side, and clutched a rung as a dog's teeth close upon a bone; a dog's growl, too, half triumph and half threat, came from his deep chest; then he began slowly to ascend, keeping his eyes fixed on Richard. The latter drew back a little to give him space, and watched him with folded arms.
"Now," said Solomon, stepping off the ladder with the prolonged "Ha!" of one who breathes freely after long oppression, "it ismyturn!"
"What are you about to do?" asked Richard, calmly.
"What! you think we are quits, Richard Yorke, do you? or at least that when I had seen you hung it would seem so to me? You don't know what it is to die here slowly in the dark; you are about to learn that."
"Indeed."
"Yes. You complained the other day of my having used the law against you. Well, you shall not have to reproach me with that a second time. We are about to change places, you and I, that's all. You shall keep sentry down yonder till Death comes to relieveyou. It was indiscreet in you to venture here alone to dictate terms, my friend."
Solomon's voice was grating and terrible; it had grown hoarse with calling. His form was gaunt and pinched with hunger; his eyes flashed like those of some starving beast of prey.
"I swear to you I came here to rescue you, and with no other purpose," said Richard, earnestly. "I was not afraid of you when you were hale and strong, and much less now when you are weakened with privation; but I do not wish to have your blood upon my hands. I came here to-night—"
"Is it night?" interrupted the other, eagerly. "I did not know that it was night; how should I, in this place, where there is no day? Well, that was still more indiscreet of you, for I shall get away unseen, while you lie here unsought."
"Your scheme is futile. There are fifty men about the pit's mouth now. I have told them—"
"Liar!" Solomon darted forward; and Richard, throwing away the torch, as though disdaining to use any advantage in the way of weapon, grappled with him at once. At the touch of his foe his scruples vanished, and his hate returned with tenfold fury. But he was in the grasp of a giant. Privation had doubtless weakened Solomon, but he had still the strength of a powerful man, and his rage supplied him for the time with all that he had lost. They clung to one another like snakes, and whirled about with frantic violence. Whichever fell undermost was a dead man for certain. For a few moments the expiring torch still showed them each other's hot, vindictive faces; then they battled in the dark, with laboring breath and eager strain, swaying they knew not whither. At last the huge weight of Solomon overbore his lesser antagonist. Richard's limbs gave way beneath him, and he fell, but fell through space; for in their gyrations they had, without knowing it, returned to the top of the ladder. His foe, fast clutched, fell with him, but, pitching on his head, was killed, as we have seen, upon the instant.
This was the true history of what had occurred in the mine, as Richard, on his bed of pain, recalled it step by step, and strove to shape it to his ends.
Whether Richard's own injuries proved fatal or not was with him a matter of secondary importance. His anxiety was to prove that they were received by misadventure; upon the whole, matters promised favorably for this, and were in other respects as satisfactory as could reasonably be expected. The blood of Solomon Coe was upon his own head. Richard had no need even to reproach himself with having struck in self-defense the blow that killed his enemy; and he did not reflect that he was still to blame for having, in the first instance, placed him in the mine. He had at least done his best to extricate him, and his conscience was (perhaps naturally) not very tender respecting the man who had repaid his attempt at atonement with such implacable animosity. At all events, Richard's mind was too much engaged in calculating the consequences of what had happened to entertain remorse. The question that now monopolized it was, what conclusion was likely to be arrived at by the coroner's inquest that would, of course, be held upon the body. The verdict was of the most paramount importance to him, not because upon it depended his own safety (for he valued his life but lightly, and, besides, his inward pain convinced him that it was already forfeited), but all that now made life worth having—the good regards of Harry and her son. He had no longer any scruple on his own part with respect to accepting or returning their affection. His fear was, lest, having been compelled to take so active a part in the rescue of the unhappy Solomon, something should arise to implicate him in his incarceration.
Fortunately he was far too ill to be summoned as a witness. His deposition alone could be taken, and that he framed with the utmost caution, and as briefly as was possible. His wounded lung defended him from protracted inquiries. Solomon himself had proposed the idea of a partnership in Wheal Danes, and his interest in the mine, the knowledge of which had suggested to Richard the place of his concealment, had evidently proved fatal to him. That he should have broken his neck just as Richard had broken his ribs on such a quest was by no means extraordinary; but how he ever reached the spot where he was found at all, without the aid of a ladder, was inexplicable. The line of evidence was smooth enough but for this ugly knot, and it troubled Richard much, though, as it happened, unnecessarily. Had the place of the calamity been a gravel-pit at Highgate, it would have been guarded by constabulary, and all things preserved as they were until after the official investigation. But Wheal Danes, from having been a deserted mine, had suddenly become the haunt of the curious and the morbid. There was nothing more likely than that Solomon's ladder had been carried off, and perhaps disposed of at a high price per foot as an interesting relic. The presence of the half-extinguished torch that Richard had flung away in the second level (and which should by rights have been found in the third) was still more easily explained: there were a score of such things now lying about the mine, which had been left there by visitors. In short, an "active" coroner and an "intelligent" jury could have come to no other conclusion than that of "accidental death;" and they came to it accordingly.
Other comforters had arrived to the wounded man, before the receipt of that good news, in the persons of Harry and her son and Agnes. There was a reason why all three should be now warmly attracted toward him, which, while it effectually worked his will in that way, gave him many a twinge. They looked upon him, as did the rest of the world, as the man who had lost his life (for his wound was by this time pronounced to be fatal) to save his friend. He told them that it was not so, and they did not believe him. He had not the heart to tell them how matters really stood; but their praise pained him more than the agony of his wound, and he peremptorily forbade the subject to be alluded to. This command was not difficult to obey. Solomon's death, although the awful character of it shocked them much, was, in reality, regretted neither by wife nor son: such must be the case with every husband and father who has been a domestic tyrant, no matter how dutifully wife and son may strive to mourn: his loss was a release, and his memory a burden that they very willingly put aside; and, in particular, his name was never mentioned before Agnes without strong necessity.
Mrs. Coe, always at her best and wisest in matters wherein her son was concerned, had never told this girl of the part which Robert Balfour had taken against her. It would have wounded her self-love to have learned that the influence of a comparative stranger had been used, and with some effect, to estrange her Charley. She would scarcely have made sufficient allowance for a man of the world's insidious arts, notwithstanding the circumstances that had so favored them. Thus Harry had justly reasoned, and kept silence concerning him. Agnes had therefore set down the gradual cessation of her lover's visits to Soho, and his growing coldness, solely to the hostility of Solomon. They had pained her deeply, though she had been too proud to evince aught but indignation; still she strove to persuade herself it was but natural that this lad, entirely dependent upon his father for the means of livelihood, and daily exposed to his menaces or arguments, should endeavor to steel himself against her; that he really loved her less she did not in her own faithful heart believe. It was, however, with no thought of regaining his affection that she had obeyed the widow's hasty summons on the news of the catastrophe at Wheal Danes, but solely from sympathy and affection. She had always loved and pitied her, for Harry had shown her kindness and great good-will; and, notwithstanding the girl's high spirit, she did not now forget, as many would have done, all other debts in that obligation so easy of discharge, namely, "what she owed to herself."
Her presence, notwithstanding the sad occasion of it, at once reawakened Charley's slumbering passion, and the coldness with which she received its advances only made it burn more brightly, like fire in frost. He felt that he had not even deserved the friendship she now offered him in place of her former love, and was patient and submissive under his just punishment. He hoped in time to re-establish himself in her affections; but at present, somewhat to Mrs. Coe's indignation, she had showed no sign of yielding. He did in reality occupy the same position in her heart as of old; but now that he was rich, and his own master (for his mother was his slave), she was not inclined to confess it. Had he been poor and dependent, she would have forgiven him readily enough; nor are such natures unparalleled in her sex, notwithstanding the pictures which are nowadays presented to us as types of girlhood.
Such, then, was the mutual relation in which these two young people stood, who ministered by turns (for Harry was always with him) to the wants of the dying Balfour. The feelings with which he was regarded by all three were in curious contrast with their former ones. What those of Harry were now toward him we can easily guess; her hate and fear had vanished to make room for love—not the love of old times, indeed, but a deeper and a purer passion; it could never bear fruit, she knew—it was but a prolonged farewell. To-morrow, or the next day, Death would interpose between them; but in the mean time they were together, and she clung to him.
Charley, on the other hand, with whom Balfour had once been such a favorite, felt, though attentive to his needs, by no means cordially toward him. Gratitude for the fancied service he had done to his late father compelled him to give Richard his company; but it was not accorded willingly, as heretofore. He could not but set down to the account of his companionship the present frigidity of Agnes, and at first he had even seen him a material obstacle to his hopes. This audacious man of the world, who had at one time so excited his admiration, had suddenly become in his eyes an impudentroué, who even on his sick-bed was only too likely to make their past adventures together the subject of his talk. True, his mother had told him that Mr. Balfour was now an altered man; but the young gentleman had entertained some reasonable doubts of this conversion. His manner to the sick man was so reserved and cool, indeed, that it seemed to all but Richard (who guessed the cause of it, and yet felt its effect more bitterly than all) unkind. This behavior on the part of his former ally did not injure Balfour in the regards of Agnes; she resented Charley's conduct, and did her best to redress it by manifesting her own good-will; she had herself had experience of his shifting moods and causeless changes of demeanor, and perhaps she was willing to show what small importance she attached to his capricious humors. Thus it happened that Richard and herself "got on" together much better (as well, of course, as much more speedily) than the former could have hoped for; for indeed he had, with reason, expected to find a bitter enemy in Agnes. He improved this advantage to the utmost by taking occasion, in Charley's absence, to praise the lad, under whose displeasure he manifestly lay. She answered that he had not, at least from Mr. Balfour's lips, deserved such praise.
"Nay, nay," said Richard, gently; "it is I who have not deserved the lad's good-will; and you, my dear young lady, ought to be the last to pity me, as I see you do."
"How so?" asked she, in surprise.
"Because," answered he, gravely, "I once strove to keep him from you."
She looked annoyed, and cast a hurried glance toward the place whereMrs. Coe had been sitting; but there was now only an empty chair there.The widow had purposely withdrawn herself, in accordance with Richard'swish. Agnes could scarcely leave the sick man without attendance.
"When I say, 'keep him from you,'" continued Richard, "I mean that, being lonely and friendless (as you see I am but for you three), the society of this bright boy was very dear to me, and I selfishly strove to secure it when he would fain have been elsewhere. I needed, as you may well imagine, authority to back me in such efforts, but, unhappily for him, I possessed its aid. He now resents, and very naturally, the restraint which my companionship once imposed upon him, and sets down to my account the estrangement which he so bitterly rues. An old man's friendship is of no great worth at any time; but weighed in the balance against a woman's love—"
"Sir!" interrupted Agnes, with indignation.
"Pardon me," continued Richard, gently; "I see you do not love him. I am deeply grieved, for the sake of this poor lad, who is as devoted to you as ever, to find it so, and to feel that it was in part my fault. I will ask him to forgive me if he can."
"Nay, Mr. Balfour, I beseech you, don't do that," cried Agnes, with crimson cheeks.
"As you please," murmured he, gravely. "But, remember, a few days hence, or perhaps a few hours, and I may be beyond his forgiveness. It will then rest with you, young lady, to clear my memory. You are not angry with me—you can not be vexed with a dying man."
"No, no." She was sobbing violently; her heart was touched, not only by his own condition, as she would have had him believe, but by these confidences respecting Charley. There is nothing more dear to a young girl than the testimony of another man to her lover's fealty; the witness himself is even guerdoned with some payment of the rich store he bears; and from that moment Balfour was not only forgiven by Agnes, but even beloved by her.
That the termination of Richard's malady would be fatal did not from the first admit of doubt, but he lingered on beyond all expectation. The spring came on and found him yet alive at Gethin. He was never moved from the room to which he had been carried after his mischance—the same which had been his bedroom in the old times, when he was full of strength and vigor—wherein he had so often lain awake, revolving schemes to win his Harry, or slept and dreamed of her. The comparison of his "now" and "then" was melancholy enough, but it was not bitter. His pain was great, but not out of proportion to his comfort. He had still Harry's love, and he had even that of two other hearts besides, which he had reconciled and drawn together. In him Charles had had an unwearying advocate with Agnes, and at last he had won his cause. She had been driven to take refuge in her last intrenchment—her poverty—and Richard had made that untenable.
"You will not be an heiress, perhaps, my dear," he had said to her, "though you deserve to be one; but neither will you be undowered. I have left you all I have. Nay, it is not much—a few score acres by the sea—but they will soon be yours."
She had accepted them unwillingly, and under protest; but a day came when it became necessary for her to remonstrate with the sick man once again concerning this matter, sorry as she was to thwart or vex him; she therefore requested, to have a few minutes' talk alone with him.
"Dear Mr. Balfour," said she, gently, "I am going to disobey you in once more reopening the matter of your kind bequest. Something has happened which has given the affair a wholly different aspect. Among the visitors yesterday to that dreadful mine, to which people still flock, there was a Mr. Stratum—a young engineer, it seems, of some reputation; and in his researches in Wheal Danes they say he has hit upon a great treasure, or what may turn out to be such."
"Ay," said Richard, with a smile; "what's that?"
"A copper lode. It is curious that so many folks should have come and gone there and never found it before; but there it is, for certain. Mr. Stratum has seen Charles, and tells him that he can hardly trust himself to speak of its probable value."
"Well, I congratulate you, my dear, on being an heiress."
"Nay, my dear Mr. Balfour, but this must not be. Overborne by your kind pressure I consented to receive this bequest—a considerable one in itself, indeed—for what it was. I could not now take advantage of your ignorance of its real value; it distresses me deeply to give you trouble in your present sad condition, but you must see yourself that circumstances compel me."
"Give me the will, my dear; it is in yonder drawer. Here is a letter folded in it in my handwriting. What does the superscription say?"
"To Agnes Aird."
"Just so. You were to have opened it after my death, but you may read it now. Please to do so aloud."
"MY DEAR YOUNG LADY,—When I am gone, it is my earnest desire that your marriage with Charles Coe shall take place as early as may be found convenient. He will make a good husband to you, I think; I am sure you will make him a good wife. He loves you for your own sake, which is the only love worth having. But, as it happens, you are very rich. In the mine which I have left you—in the northeastern corner of the bottom level—there is a copper lode, the existence of which is known to me, and to me only. I have every reason to believe that it will be found in the highest degree productive, and for your dear sake I trust it may be so. True, you will have money enough and to spare for your own needs, but wealth will not spoil you—in your hands it will be a great good. To the two injunctions which here follow I have no means to give effect, and must trust solely to your loyal heart to carry them out. I do so with the most perfect confidence. (1.) I wish that this bequest of mine, be the value of it ever so great, be strictly settled, upon your marriage, on yourself and your children, so that it can not be alienated by any act of your husband; and this I do not from any preference to yourself over him, or from any prejudice against him, God knows. (2.) In case the estate of Crompton, of which Wheal Danes formed a fragment, should again be in the market, and the mine turn out so valuable that its proceeds should enable you to purchase such estate (without inconvenience or damage to your interests), I do enjoin that you do so purchase it, and make Crompton your future home. This is a 'sick man's fancy,' some will tell you; and yet you will not neglect it."
* * * * *
"And youwillnot, Agnes dear?" whispered Richard, eagerly, when she had thus finished. "This is the last favor I shall ever ask of you. Promise me! promise me!"
"Oh, Sir, I promise you," cried Agnes, earnestly, and scared by his anxious feebleness; "your wishes shall be obeyed in all points."
"Good girl, good girl," sighed he; and though the effort pained him sharply, his face exhibited a great content. "Send Charley to me," said he, presently, in a faint voice.
"But you are tired already," remonstrated Agnes. "You have talked enough for to-day; see him to-morrow."
"To-morrow!" repeated Richard, with a smile that chilled her heart. "There will be no to-morrow, dear, for me. Reflect hereafter that you made my last day a happy one. Kiss me, daughter." This term, which was uttered very fondly, did not surprise her, for she little guessed its full significance. She bent down, and kissed his forehead. "Send me Charley."
Those were the last words she ever heard him speak.
Agnes had told the young fellow how much feebler Mr. Balfour seemed that day, and warned him to make his interview as brief as possible; but Charley was of a sanguine temperament, and to his view the sick man looked better. The recent excitement had heightened his color, and, besides, he always strove to look his best and cheerfulest with Charley.
Balfour told him all that he had already said to Agnes respecting the provision he had made for her; he thought it better to relieve her from that task. But, to do Charley justice, he was neither grasping nor jealous. Nothing seemed more natural to him, or even more reasonable, than that Agnes should be made sole heiress.
"As for me, I should only make a mess of so much money," said he, laughing. "Sheunderstands how to manage"—meaning that she had a talent for administration of affairs—"five thousand times better than I do. Her father has taught her all sorts of good things, and that among them. You see the poor governor and I—we never pulled together. Perhaps if I had had a father a little less unlike myself, I might have been a better son, and a wiser one. It was unfortunate, as Mrs. Basil used to say. You remember her, of course?"
"Yes, indeed."
The sick man's tone was so full of interest that Charley, with great cheerfulness, proceeded to pursue this subject.
"She was an excellent old soul; and, for her age, how sprightly and appreciative! I remember—the very last time she came down to dinner—telling her that story of yours about the stags in harness, and it so interested her that she made me repeat it. It seemed to remind her of something that she had heard before; and yet the incident was original, and happened within your own experience, did it not?"
"It did," said Balfour, hoarsely.
"I am tiring you, my dear Sir," said Charley, anxiously. "What a fool I have been to chatter on so, when Agnes particularly told me to be brief! I shall leave you now, Sir; I shall indeed. Is there any thing I can do for you before I leave?"
"Nothing, nothing. If I strove to take Agnes from you, lad, I did my best to make her yours again. You don't dislike me now, dear boy, do you?"
"Dislike you, Sir!" cried the young man. "That would indeed be base ingratitude; you were always most kind to me, and you have loaded my Agnes with benefits. I can not say, Sir, how unhappy it makes me to see you lying here in pain, and—"
"And dying, Charley. Yes, you are sorry for me, good lad."
"Indeed, indeed I am, Sir."
"When your Agnes left me last she kissed me on the forehead—here. I would not ask it else—but—kiss me, Charley."
The sick man's voice was very weak and faint, but its tones were full of pathos. In some surprise, but without the least hesitation, the young man stooped down and kissed him. "I shall leave you now, dear Mr. Balfour, and only hope my thoughtless chatter may not have done you mischief. I will send my mother to you, who is so quiet, and so good a nurse, as an antidote. Good-by for the present, Sir."
"Good-by, dear lad—good-by."
Richard well knew it was good-by, not for the present, but forever.
When Mrs. Coe came into the sick man's room she perceived in him a change for the worse, so marked that it alarmed her greatly, and she was about to softly pull the bell, when Richard stopped her with a look.
"Don't ring," whispered he, faintly. "Sit down by me, Harry; put your little hand in mine. I am quite happy. Our boy has kissed me."
"You did not tell him? He does not know?" inquired Harry, anxiously.
"Nay, dear, nay; I am not quite so selfish as that," answered he, gently.
There was a long pause.
"Do you think my mother knew about him?" asked Richard, presently.
"Oh yes—though I strove to deceive her—from the first moment she saw him, Richard, she knew it well. We never spoke of it, but it was a secret we had in common. She loved him as though he had been your very self; I am sure of that."
"And she knewmetoo, Harry."
"Impossible! She could never have concealed that knowledge—with you before her; for you were her idol, Richard."
"It was afterward," murmured the dying man. "When I had left the house Charley told her something I had related to him, which convinced her of my identity. I see it all now. She felt that I was bent on vengeance, and sent you after me to use that weapon of which she knew you were possessed. If we once came face to face, and you reproached me, my secret was certain to come out—just as it did, Harry—and then you had but to say, 'Charley is your son.'"
"But why did she not tell me who you were?"
"Because, if you were too late—if the mischief had been done on which she deemed me bent—if your—if Solomon had come to harm, she would not have had you know that Richard Yorke—the father of your child—had blood upon his hands. Oh, mother, mother, your last thought was to keep my memory free from stain!"
He spoke no more for full a minute; no sound was heard except the distant murmur of the sea, for the day was fine and windless. The April sun shone brightly in upon the pair, as if to bless their parting.
"Where is Charley?" murmured he.
"He is gone with Agnes for a walk; they will not be long; they talked of going to the Watch Tower. You remember the old Watch Tower, Richard?"
"Well, ah, well!" answered he, smiling. "It is just twenty years ago.How often have I thought of it!"
For a moment—before they separated forever—these two seemed to themselves to relive the youth to which another generation had succeeded.
"Agnes is a far better girl than I was, Richard; but she can not love our boy more thanIlovedyou."
Richard answered with a smile that glorified each ghastly feature, and brought out in them a likeness to himself of old.
"She will be his good angel, Harry," whispered Richard, gravely, "and will guard him from himself. He will need her aid, but it will be sufficient. I trust, I believe, that evil is not Bred in the Bone with him, as it was with me."
There was a long, long silence, broken by a silvery laugh, which came through the half-opened window like a strain of cheerful music, then was suddenly cut short.
"Hush, Charley; you forget," said the soft voice of Agnes; "he may be sleeping."
Through the calm spring air the reproof was borne into the sick man's room as clearly as the sound which had called it forth.
"He is so happy," whispered Harry, gently; "you must forgive him; remember he does not know."
"Yes, yes; it is better so. Dear Charley—happy, happy Charley!"
And a smile once more came over the sick man's face, which did not pass away, for Death had frozen it there.