They did not fatigue him, even with these pious ministrations. The soothing words were read to him after pauses of silence, and only when he seemed free from pain. Lucille’s gentle hand bathed the burning forehead. Janet held the reviving cordial to the pale parched lips. Had he lived nobly, and perished in the discharge of some sacred duty, his dying hours could not have been more gently tended. And thus the slow sad day wore on, and at dusk he started up out of a brief slumber, with a sharp cry of pain, and repeated, in a strange husky voice, the words Lucille had read to him a little while before: ‘Lord—be merciful—to me—a—’ He lacked strength to finish that brief sentence; but, conscious to the last, looked round upon them all, and then, stretching out his arms to Lucille, fell upon her neck, and died there. He had loved the little girl who sat on his knee in the gloaming, while he played by his father’s fireside, better than the wife he wronged. CHAPTER VI. LUCIUS IN QUEST OF JUSTICE. Lucius went to Messrs. Pullman and Everill’s office the day after Ferdinand Sivewright’s death. Mr. Pullman, an active-looking elderly man, received him with that stock-in-trade kind of politeness which thriving solicitors keep for unknown clients, heard his story, smiled somewhat incredulously at some of its details, but reserved his opinion until he should have mastered the case. ‘Isn’t it rather strange that we should never have heard of this youthful marriage of Mr. Henry Glenlyne’s,’ he said, with his sceptical smile, when the story was finished, ‘if there had been such a marriage?’ ‘Not more strange than that other clandestine marriages should be kept secret,’ said Lucius. ‘Ah, but they so seldom are kept secret for more than a year or two; they always transpire somehow. Facts are like water, Mr. Davoren, and have an odd way of leaking out. This supposed marriage, according to your showing, is an event of twenty years ago.’ ‘There is really no room for speculation upon the subject,’ said Lucius coolly. ‘You can easily verify my statement by a reference to the registries of St. James’s, Piccadilly, where Félicie Dumarques’ marriage is no doubt recorded.’ This was unanswerable. Mr. Pullman looked meditative, but said nothing. ‘And what is your motive for coming to me?’ he asked at last. ‘I came here presuming that you, as Mr. Henry Glenlyne’s solicitor, would be naturally desirous to see his daughter righted.’ ‘But suppose I should be disinclined to believe in the parentage of this young lady, your protegée?’ ‘My future wife, Mr. Pullman.’ ‘Ah, I understand,’ returned the lawyer quickly, as much as to say, ‘We are getting to the motive of your conduct, my young gentleman.’ ‘I have been engaged to Miss Glenlyne for nearly a year,’ said Lucius, as if answering Mr. Pullman’s degrading supposition, ‘but it is only within the last week that I have discovered the secret of her parentage.’