“It is all my fault John. You, brother, tried to prevent it. I alone am to blame. I have driven my darling mad and I believe that it will kill her. I did it Oh God! I did it. Blame no one John; be kind, punish no one, my brother. I alone am at fault.” These words came with the force of a terrible blow to Jack Dunlap, and halted him in mute and motionless wonder where he was. “James, don’t talk that way. I can’t stand it, brother. Whatever you have done, I know not, and care not, it is noble, just and right and I stand with you, brother, in whatsoever it may be,” said John Dunlap in a broken but energetic voice. “Has no one told you then, John?” came faintly from the partially paralyzed lips of him who lay upon the bed. “Told me what? Brother James; but no matter what they have to tell, you are not blamable as you say; I stand by that.” Though the voice was husky, there was a challenge in the tone that said, let no man dare attack my brother. The innate chivalry of the old New Englander was superior even to his sorrow. “Who is in the room beside you, John?” asked James Dunlap, anxious that something he had to say should not be heard by other than the trustworthy, and unable to move his head to ascertain. “No one, James, but our kinsman, Jack Dunlap, and faithful David Chapman,” replied his brother. The palsied man struggled with some powerful emotion, and by the greatest effort was only able to utter in a whisper the words, “Lucy’s baby is black and impish. The negro blood in Burton caused the breeding back to a remote ancestor, as, John, you warned me might be the case. It has driven my granddaughter insane and will cause her death. God have mercy on me!” The effort and emotion was too much for the weak old gentleman; his head fell to one side; he had fainted. John Dunlap started when he heard these direful words. A look of horror on his face, but brotherly love stronger than all else caused him to put aside every thought and endeavor to resuscitate the unconscious man. Poor Jack. He had borne manfully much heartache, but the dreadful thing that he had just heard was too much for even his iron will and nerves. He collapsed as if a dagger had pierced his heart, and would have fallen to the floor had he not gripped the bedstead when his legs gave way. Chapman raised his head and gazed, with eyes red from weeping, at him who told the calamitous story of the events that had stricken him down. There was a dangerous glitter in the red eyes as Chapman sprung to John Dunlap’s assistance in reviving the senseless man. When Jack recovered self-command sufficient to realize what was happening about him, he found that the physician, who had been summoned, had administered restoratives and stimulants, and that the patient had returned to consciousness; that the kind Doctor was trying to comfort the heartbroken brother of the sufferer even while obliged to admit that the end of life for James Dunlap was not far distant.