‘That’s bitter,’ muttered Ferdinand. ‘Just as I saw my grip upon the old man’s hoard. I had schemes enough in this busy brain to occupy twenty years more. Dying! How did I come here? What happened to me? I remember nothing, except that I got into my father’s house last night to have a little peaceable conversation with him. Did I see him? I can’t remember.’ ‘Don’t rack your brain to remember. There is no time to think of your life in detail. Repent, even at this last hour, and pray to an all-merciful God to pardon a life that has been all sin.’ ‘Let Him answer for the work of His hands,’ cried the sinner. ‘He gave me the passions that ruled my life—the brain that plotted, the heart that knew not compunction. If He has His chosen vessels for good and evil, I suppose I have fulfilled the purpose of my creation.’ ‘May God forgive your blasphemous thought! To all His creatures He gives the right of choice between two roads. You, of your own election, chose the evil path. It is not too late even now to cry to Him, “Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner!”’ The dying man closed his eyes, and made no answer. ‘I don’t suppose I should have been a bad fellow,’ he said by and by, ‘if destiny had provided me with a handsome income, say ten thousand a year. The tiger is a decent beast enough till he is hungry. I’ve had a strange life—a chequered fabric—some sunshine; a good deal of shadow. You never heard of me in the United States, I suppose, where I was best known as Señor Ferdinando, the violin improvisatore? I was the rage yonder in my time, I can tell you, and saw the dollars roll in like the golden waters of Pactolus, and had pretty women going mad about me by scores. Ferdinando—yes, I was a great man as Señor Ferdinando.’ He paused with a sigh, half regret, half satisfaction. ‘I had a run of luck at the tables at San Francisco, when I got the better of that accursed bulletwound—your bullet, remember—and I didn’t do badly at the diggings, though I gained more by a lucky partnership with some hard-working fools than by actual work. Then came a turn in the tide, and I landed in this used-up old country without a five-pound note, and nothing to hope for but the chance of getting on the blind side of my old father. But that was difficult.’ ‘You contrived to rob him, however,’ said Lucius. The dying eyes looked at him with the old keen gaze, as if taking the measure of his knowledge. But Ferdinand Sivewright did not trouble himself either to deny or admit the justice of this accusation. ‘In England things went badly with me always; though I have played the gentleman here in my time,’ he muttered, and closed his eyes wearily. Lucius moistened the dry lips with brandy from a bottle that stood by the bedside. The messenger returned to say that two ladies were below in the waiting-room. Lucius went down-stairs, leaving a nurse in charge of Ferdinand. He found Janet and Lucille alike pale and anxious. Lucille was the first to speak.