When the valet returned, Mr. Caryll was on his knees beside the bed, Sir Richard's hand in his, and Sir Richard was speaking in a feeble, hoarse voice--gasping and coughing at intervals. “Don't--don't grieve, Justin,” he was saying. “I am an old man. My time must have been very near. I--I am glad that it is thus. It is much better than if they had taken me. They'd ha' shown me no mercy. 'Tis swifter thus, and--and easier.” Silently Justin wrung the hand he held. “You'll miss me a little, Justin,” the old man resumed presently. “We have been good friends, lad--good friends for thirty years.” “Father!” Justin cried, a sob in his voice. Sir Richard smiled. “I would I were your father in more than name, Justin. Hast been a good son to me--no son could have been more than you.” Bentley drew nigh with a long glass containing a cordial the doctor had advised. Sir Richard drank avidly, and sighed content when he returned the glass. “How long yet, Justin?” he inquired. “Not long, father,” was the gloomy answer. “It is well. I am content. I am happy, Justin. Believe me, I am happy. What has my life been? Dissipated in the pursuit of a phantom.” He spoke musingly, critically calm, as one who already upon the brink of dissolution takes already but an impersonal interest in the course he has run in life. Judging so, his judgment was clearer than it had yet been; it grew sane, and was freed at last from the hackles of fanaticism; and there was something that he saw in its true proportions. He sighed heavily. “This is a judgment upon me,” he said presently. He turned his great eyes full upon Justin, and their dance was infinitely wistful. “Do you remember, Justin, that night at your lodging--that first night on which we talked here in London of the thing you were come to do--the thing to which I urged you? Do you recall how you upbraided me for having set you a task that was unworthy and revolting?” “I remember,” answered Justin, with an inward shudder, fearful of what might follow. “Oh, you were right, Justin; right, and I was entirely wrong--wickedly wrong. I should have left vengeance to God. He is wreaking it. Ostermore's whole life has been a punishment; his end will be a punishment. I understand it now. We do no wrong in life, Justin, for which in this same life payment is not exacted. Ostermore has been paying. I should have been content with that. After all, he is your father in the flesh, and it was not for you to raise your hand against him. 'Tis what you have felt, and I am glad you should have felt it, for it proves your worthiness. Can you forgive me?” “Nay, nay, father! Speak not of forgiveness.” “I have sore need of it.” “Ah, but not from me; not from me! What is there I should forgive? There is a debt between us I had hoped to repay some day when you were grown truly old. I had looked to tend you in your old age, to be the comfort of it, and the support that you were to my infancy.”