"And then he told me how he couldn't ask Miss Dallas to marry him till he had told about his quarrel with his father; but his pride had held him back from trying to make it up, and going to seek for what he'd thrown away. He'd had a very hard time, he told me, what with the oath he'd made, and all that lay behind him. And he did look pale and changed, I can tell you, and seemed as if he couldn't speak what was in his mind. But he should go, he said, whether the jewels were found or not, and even if the opening up of all the old scandal put him further off the young lady. And then I told him the thoughts I'd had on the subject, and he said: `There's more than that, Harry, for through all this I've come to see that I sinned against God.'" "Well," said Mrs Stroud, "I never did think to hear as Mr Alwyn was a converted man! It's a miracle!" "Well," said Harry gravely, "as you may say it was; but 'twas that conviction that conquered his pride and made him resolve to go home again. Just as we'd settled on this conclusion, and were wondering what to do next, there was an accident with some paraffin, and a young fellow working for us was near burnt to death, and would have been killed on the spot but for Mr Alwyn. Now we knew that this young man Lennox had been footman at Ravenshurst, and had left the place about a week before we did, to go abroad with a gentleman. He told us he came to seek work because he had known us formerly. "To make a long story short, Mr Alwyn, worse luck, sent the only other man about for the doctor, and he and I stayed with Lennox. Then, says he, he'd been a great sinner, and he'd like to own it before he died. And he told Mr Alwyn a number of dishonest actions, small and great, and at last he said he'd taken the Ravenshurst jewels. He'd come back on the sly to see his sweetheart after he left the place, and saw the young lady come down and slip the jewels under the ferns on the rockery, and he took them on the spur of the moment. Well, he was just off with his new master on a trip to India; but he contrived to hear how I was suspected before he started." "And took the jewels with him?" "Well--it's all in the confession Mr Alwyn wrote down. But one of the jewels he had still, and that he gave us, and Mr Alwyn has it row. But he said it had been on his conscience all the time he was knocking about the world, and that when he heard our names he came and got work with us on purpose, though he put off owning his guilt from day to day. He'd near put it off too late, for before he'd told us all we wanted to know the death struggle came on him and he could tell us no more. And 'twas then, Aunt Eliza, by the words Mr Alwyn said, and the prayers he made that I knew of the change that had come on him and first thought of my sin against God, as well as against the little one.