"I want to tell you what I have done. You know the direct line of my family ends with me. I am glad it does. The next in succession would be a cousin, who has taken to some trade in Edinburgh; a good man, I believe--but he would not do here. So I have left Kerton to my mother for her life, and then--to you. Hush! the time is too short for objections or thanks, and death-bed gifts show little generosity. Besides, I would have left it to Isabel, only it would be more a trouble to her than any thing else. You will take care of every thing and every body. Say farewell for me to my old friends, especially to Mohun. Poor Ralph! he will be sorry--though he will not own it--when he comes back from Bohemia and finds me gone." He raised himself a little, so as to rest his hand on my shoulder as I knelt, while his voice deepened in its solemn calm: "Dear Frank, one other word for yourself, who have borne so patiently with my perverse temper since we were boys together. I have been silent, but, indeed, not ungrateful. For all your kind, unselfish thoughts, and words, and deeds--for all the good you would have counseled--for all your efforts to stand between me and wrong-doing--tried friend, true comrade! I thank you now, heartily, and I pray God to bless you always." It was only self-control, almost superhuman, that enabled him to speak those words steadily, for the fierce death-throe was possessing him before he ended. Through the awful minutes that followed, not another sound than the hissing breath escaped through his set lips; his face was not once distorted, though the hair and beard clung round it, matted and dank with the sweat of agony. The brave heart and iron nerve ruled the body to the last imperially--supreme over the intensity of torture. When he opened his eyes, which had been closed all through the protracted death-pang, there was a look of the ancient kindness in them, though they were glazing fast. He found my hand, and grasped it, till I felt the life ebbing back in his fingers. I saw his lips syllable "Good-by;" then, he leaned his head back gently, and, without a sigh or a shiver, the strong man's spirit went forth into The Night. A sense of utter desolation, as it were a horror of great darkness, gathered all around me as I leaned my forehead against the corpse's cheek, sobbing like a helpless child. You will not care to hear how we all mourned him. Will you care to hear that, often as his mother visits his grave, there is _one_ woman who comes oftener still? None of us have ever met her, for she comes always at late night or early morning. But finding, in the depth of winter or in the bleak spring, the ground about strewed with the choicest of exotic flowers--not carefully arranged, but showered down by a reckless, desperate hand--we know that Flora Dorrillon has been there.