At these words a sudden terror seemed to seize upon Alfred Graham. His frame shook with suppressed emotion, his countenance became livid, and his fine features were strangely contorted as if some sudden pang had convulsed him. The next instant he uttered a faint cry and fell prostrate to the ground, while his very life-blood was poured at the foot of the altar which he had dared to touch with polluted hands. He was borne to his home in utter insensibility. The sting of conscience had finished the work which disease had long since begun, and the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs had been the consequence of his unnatural excitement and self-command. All that medical skill could effect was tried, but without success, and ere the lapse of another day it was known that Alfred Graham was sinking into the arms of death. There was no time for repentance—no time to combat prejudices and awaken better impulses. He lay as if in the deep torpor of insensibility, until aroused by some cordial administered by his physician, when his strength seemed to rally, and raising himself on his pillow, he addressed his sister in words which fell like molten lead upon her heart. With all the eloquence of passion he poured forth a wild confession of his errors and his doubts, and then, in language equally fervid but far more bitter, he reproached her—_her_ who had devoted her whole life to his welfare—as the cause of all his guilt. He accused her of having crushed his timid spirit by sternness and unbending rigor—of having taught him hypocrisy by her fierce contempt for his weaknesses—of having killed him by forcing him to a profession which he hated and contemned. “I am not mad, Madeline,” he exclaimed, in a hoarse voice, broken by his difficult and long-drawn breath, “I am not mad, but so surely as I am now stretched upon the bed of death, so surely has your ambition and your mistaken zeal laid me here to die. I seek not to excuse myself, and may God forgive me my many secret sins; but never, never would my soul have been so deeply stained had it not been for your unrelenting indignation at my boyish follies, and your determined will in the choice of my future destiny. I forgive you, Madeline, but you will not forgive yourself.” The exertion of uttering these terrible words was too great, and ere the sounds yet died upon the ear of the horror-stricken sister, the spirit of the misguided youth had gone to its dread account.