Until this moment he seemed to be unconscious that he held the weapon, and now he started and allowed it to drop to the ground. "Give thanks to God," I said solemnly, "that I stepped forward in time to save the life of an innocent child." "Great God!" he murmured. "It is fit that I should die!" The silver chimes of the clock proclaimed the hour of two. He smiled piteously and gratefully, and said, "It is almost time." "There is a hidden meaning in your words," I said. "What have you done?" "Doctor, you are wrong. There is no hidden meaning in my words. All is clear and plain. What should I do to myself? What should be done to such a man as I? You are not deceiving me. You found me, you say, at the door of my daughter's room, with the dagger in my hand?" "It is true." "Then my purpose was murder. What further confirmation is needed of the truth of my father's revelation? Be thankful, doctor, that your son Reginald has escaped from my daughter, my miserable, unhappy child. Ah, me! Whose fate is the heaviest, hers or mine, or the innocent flower I married?" "I can give you some comfort," I said. "In one respect I can set your heart at ease." "Impossible, impossible!" he cried. "Not so. I have that to relate which though at first it may cause you pain, cannot fail, upon reflection, to make you grateful. If I were to tell you that you have not transmitted to an innocent girl the fatal inheritance which has weighed like a curse upon your life, how would it be with you?" "It would be heaven--it would be light! Unconscious sinner as I am, it might mean forgiveness!" "I have been closeted with your wife, from whose lips I have heard what you should hear. You will listen to me?" "Will you be long?" he asked, with a strange smile. "I will be as brief as possible--and receive it from me, as I received it from your wife, that every word I utter is true." I told him the story of Mildred, who until now he had believed to be his daughter. Perceiving that he was ill, I shortened it as much as possible. Once or twice I paused in my recital, and asked him if he was in pain. "In pain!" he cried. "When you are bringing heaven to me! The agitation you observe in me proceeds from joy. Do not linger. Finish quickly, quickly!" At the chiming of the half-hour my story was done. There was a happy light in Carew's eyes. White as his face had grown, peace had stolen into it. "Oh, God, I thank Thee!" he murmured, raising his arms; and then he suddenly fell forward on his face. "I raised his head, and assisted him into a recumbent position. "Tell me, for heaven's sake, what you have done?" I cried. "You shall know all," he gasped, with pauses between his words. "First, though ... about Emilius . . . you went to seek him, did you not? . . . He was to be here to-morrow ..." "He is here now," I said, "in this house. It was to recover his daughter that he came to England."