It was not till late afternoon that Mrs. Power, on glancing up from her chair, noticed that the invalid had opened his eyes, and was gazing at her with a puzzled look. She went to him and administered a few spoonfuls of the beef-tea which she had ready on the hob. "Just lie still and try to go to sleep," she said. "You’ll get on all right now." For an hour or more he lay silent, and the watcher thought that he dozed, but she was suddenly startled by a voice from the bed. "I’ve been down to the very gates of death, haven’t I?" was the unexpected question. "Yes," she replied, "but they are not going to open to you this time, I think. You have turned the corner now, and we expect to have you well again in no time." "I shouldn’t have been ready to go through if they had opened," said Ben, ignoring her remark. "They would have been black gates to me, not the golden ones my poor old father saw." Afraid of exciting her patient, Mrs. Power did not answer, hoping that sleep would come to quiet the troubled brain, but after a few moments’ pause Ben began again-- "When the doctor came this afternoon I know you all thought I was unconscious, but I heard him say, ’Field’s got a bad case against him,’ as he left the room. I was jolly glad at first, for I’d been wanting to have a handle against him for a long time past. However, when a man’s on the brink of the grave, he’s bound to think a bit, so I feel I ought to speak up. It certainly was Field who shot me, but he didn’t know I was there. I was putting down food for the pheasants, the plantation being a grand place for poaching, and I hid in the bushes as he came by. He fired at a cat, but he got me instead. I was stunned for a while, and then only managed to stagger to the wall, hoping someone would find me as they passed along the road. I thought I was done for when I fell again in the wood." "Do you want to make this known?" asked Mrs. Power. "Suspicions have been very rife in Mr. Field’s direction, everyone knowing that he had a grudge against you." "Yes," answered Ben slowly, "I want to make it known. I’ve had a hard fight inside me this last hour, when you believed I was asleep. I felt I had him at my mercy, and at first I determined that I wouldn’t lift up my little finger to help him, knowing that if I died he would probably have to swing for me. It’s a solemn thing, though, to know for certain that God is just on the other side of those gates, and that if they open for you, you will have to face Him right there by yourself, and that His holy eyes will search you through and through. Well, somehow things look different when it comes to that, and if I should die I dare not meet Him with a black thought like that in my heart. So I shall be glad if you will tell them all that it was entirely my fault and not Mr. Field’s. I had no business to be there at all."