"Major Stewart dying! Why, you are a more disgraceful scamp than I believed you to be. Send this fellow away," I added to a clerk who answered my summons. I then hastened off, and was speedily rattling over the stones towards Baker Street, Portman Square, where Major Stewart resided. As I left the office I heard Martin beg the clerk to lead him to the pump previous to sending him off--no doubt for the purpose of sobering himself somewhat previous to reappearing before the major, whose motives for hiring or retaining such a fellow in his modest establishment I could not understand. "You were expected more than an hour ago," said Dr. Hampton, who was just leaving the house. "The major is now, I fear, incapable of business." There was no time for explanation, and I hastily entered the sick-chamber. Major Stewart, though rapidly sinking, recognized me; and in obedience to a gesture from her master the aged, weeping house-keeper left the room. The major's daughter, Rosamond Stewart, had been absent with her aunt, her father's maiden sister, on a visit, I understood, to some friends in Scotland, and had not, I concluded, been made acquainted with the major's illness, which had only assumed a dangerous character a few days previously. The old soldier was dying calmly and painlessly--rather from exhaustion of strength, a general failure of the powers of life, than from any especial disease. A slight flush tinged the mortal pallor of his face as I entered, and the eyes emitted a slightly-reproachful expression. "It is not more, my dear sir," I replied softly but eagerly to his look, "than a quarter of an hour ago that I received your message."