A very different scene was enacted when, late in the evening, and just as I was about to leave the office, Mr. Jesse Andrews rushed in, white as a sheet, haggard, and wild with passion. "What devil's fables are these you write me?" he, burst forth the instant he had gained the threshold of the room. "How dare you," he went on, almost shrieking with fury--"how dare you attempt to palm off these accursed lies on me? Archy rich--rich--and I--. But it is a lie!--an infernal device got up to torture me--to drive me wild, distracted--mad!" The excited man literally foamed with rage, and so astonished was I, that it was a minute or two before I could speak or move. At last I rose, closed the door, (for the clerks in the outer office were hearers and witnesses of this outbreak,) and led the way to an inner and more private apartment. "Come with me, Mr. Andrews," I said, "and let us talk this matter calmly over." He mechanically followed, threw himself into a chair, and listened with frenzied impatience to the reading of the will. "A curse is upon me," he shouted, jumping up as I concluded, "the curse of God--a judgment upon the crime I but the other day committed--a crime as I thought--dolt, idiot that I was--so cunningly contrived, so cleverly executed! Fool, villain, madman that I have been; for now, when fortune is tendered for my acceptance, I dare not put forth my hand to grasp it; fortune, too, not only for me, but--. O God, it will kill us both, Martha as well as me, though I alone am to blame for this infernal chance!" This outburst appeared to relieve him, and he sank back into his chair somewhat calmer. I could understand nothing of all that rhapsody, knowing, as I did, that his son Archibald had died from natural causes. "It _is_ a severe blow," I said, in as soothing a tone as I could assume--"a very great disappointment; still, you are secured from extreme poverty--from anything like absolute want"-- "It is not that--it is not that!" he broke in, though not quite so wildly as before. "Look you, Mr. Sharp, I will tell you all! There may be some mode of extrication from this terrible predicament, and I must have your advice professionally upon it." "Go on; I will advise you to the best of my ability." "Here it is, then: Archy, my son Archy, is alive!--alive! and well in health as either you or I!" I was thunderstruck. Here was indeed a revelation.