His breath came short and thick as he thought of this. Had it come at last, then, that awful moment which he had dreamed of so many times—that hideous crisis which he had imagined under so many different aspects? Had it come at last, like this?—quietly, in the dead of the night, without one moment's warning?—before he had prepared himself to escape it, or hardened himself to meet it? Had it come now? The man thought all this while he listened, with his chest heaving, his breath coming in hoarse gasps, waiting for the reply to his question. There was no reply except the knocking, which grew louder and more hurried. If there can be expression in the tapping of a hand against a pane of glass, there was expression in that hand—the expression of entreaty rather than of demand, as it seemed to that white and terror-stricken listener. His heart gave a great throb, like a prisoner who leaps away from the fetters that have been newly loosened. "What a fool I have been!" he thought. "If it was that, there would be knocking and ringing at the hall-door, instead of that cautious summons. I suppose that fellow Vallance has got into some kind of trouble, and has come in the dead of the night to hound me for money. It would be only like him to do it. He knows he must be admitted, let him come when he may." The invalid gave a groan as he thought this. He got up and walked to the window, leaning upon his cane as he went. The knocking still sounded. He was close to the window, and he heard something besides the knocking—a woman's voice, not loud, but peculiarly audible by reason of its earnestness. "Let me in; for pity's sake let me in!" The man standing at the window knew that voice: only too well, only too well. It was the voice of the girl who had so persistently followed him, who had only lately succeeded in seeing him. He drew back the bolts that fastened the long French window, opened it, and admitted Margaret Wilmot. "Margaret!" he cried; "what, in Heaven's name, brings you here at such an hour as this?" "Danger!" answered the girl, breathlessly. "Danger to you! I have been running, and the words seem to choke me as I speak. There's not a moment to be lost, not one moment. They will be here directly; they cannot fail to be here directly. I felt as if they had been close behind me all the way—they may have been so. There is not a moment—not one moment!" She stopped, with her hands clasped upon her breast. She was incoherent in her excitement, and knew that she was so, and struggled to express herself clearly. "Oh, father!" she exclaimed, lifting her hands to her head, and pushing the loose tangled hair away from her face; "I have tried to save you—I have tried to save you! But sometimes I think that is not to be. It may be God's mercy that you should be taken, and your wretched daughter can die with you!" She fell upon her knees, suddenly, in a kind of delirium, and lifted up her clasped hands.