up with clearer interest, “What has become,” he asked, “of Mr. Rawson?” “You want to see him?” “How much are these things worth?” he went on without heeding me. “How much would they bring?” And he weighed them in his weak hands. “They’re pretty heavy. Some hundred or so? Oh I’m richer than I thought! Rawson--Rawson--you want to get out of this awful England?” I stepped to the door and requested the servant whom I kept in constant attendance in our adjacent sitting-room to send and ascertain if Mr. Rawson were on the premises. He returned in a few moments, introducing our dismal friend. Mr. Rawson was pale even to his nose and derived from his unaffectedly concerned state an air of some distinction. I led him up to the bed. In Searle’s eyes, as they fell on him, there shone for a moment the light of a human message. “Lord have mercy!” gasped Mr. Rawson. “My friend,” said Searle, “there’s to be one American the less--so let there be at the same time one the more. At the worst you’ll be as good a one as I. Foolish me! Take these battered relics; you can sell them; let them help you on your way. They’re gifts and mementoes, but this is a better use. Heaven speed you! May America be kind to you. Be kind, at the last, to your own country!” “Really this is too much; I can’t,” the poor man protested, almost scared and with tears in his eyes. “Do come round and get well and I’ll stop here. I’ll stay with you and wait on you.” “No, I’m booked for my journey, you for yours. I hope you don’t mind the voyage.” Mr. Rawson exhaled a groan of helpless gratitude, appealing piteously from so strange a windfall. “It’s like the angel of the Lord who bids people in the Bible to rise and flee!” Searle had sunk back upon his pillow, quite used up; I led Mr. Rawson back into the sitting-room, where in three words I proposed to him a rough valuation of our friend’s trinkets. He assented with perfect good-breeding; they passed into my possession and a second bank-note into his. From the collapse into which this wondrous exercise of his imagination had plunged him my charge then gave few signs of being likely to emerge. He breathed, as he had said, and nothing more. The twilight deepened; I lighted the night-lamp. The doctor sat silent and official at the foot of the bed; I resumed my constant place near the head. Suddenly our patient opened his eyes wide. “She’ll not come,” he murmured. “Amen! she’s an English sister.” Five minutes passed; he started forward. “She’s come, she’s here!” he confidently quavered. His words conveyed to my mind so absolute an assurance that I lightly rose and passed into the sitting-room. At the same moment, through the opposite door, the servant introduced a lady. A lady, I say; for an instant she was simply such--tall pale dressed in deep mourning. The next instant I had uttered her name--“Miss Searle!” She looked ten years older.