“They are kind,” he answered, “to leave me in peace. I am punished enough with my conscience, which goads me like so many demons.” He was silent a moment and then his eyes grew brighter again, with an expression Louie did not like, and his old comical smile played round his mouth as he said, “It would be a big thing to send a dying man to prison, wouldn’t it? and do a lot of good. I deserve it, though, but am glad not to go. And now, cover me up. I am very cold all the time—some like Harry Gill, you know, shivering with his three coats and I don’t know how many blankets.” He laughed again—a laugh pitiful to see; and Louie covered him up and wiped the cold sweat from his face, and sat down beside him with a sinking heart as she saw how fast he was failing, both bodily and mentally. The strain he had endured for years, with the recent excitement, was telling fearfully upon a constitution never very strong. As the days went by he asked no questions about the business, and answered none very coherently, but lay all day with his eyes closed as if asleep. Louie knew he was not sleeping, for if she left the room he always looked after her, and smiled when she came back. Once, when he heard the sound of wheels in the lane, he said to her: “That is our horses, Jack and Jill; where are they going?” Louie’s eyes were full of tears which she could not keep back, as she told him that Jack and Jill had been sold with the carriage, and were being driven away. “Sold to whom?” he asked. “Godfrey Sheldon,” she replied. “He offered so big a price that Mr. Blake advised us to take it. Do you care?” “No,” he said. “Nothing matters now for me, but I would like to see my bays once more. Do you think you could help me to the window?” “I’ll try,” Louie replied, and stepping from his bed he tottered to the window just as the carriage reached the highway. Jack and Jill had not been exercised for some time and their heads were high in the air and it was with difficulty the driver could keep them from breaking into a run in their delight to be out again. “Beautiful bays! I hope Mr. Sheldon will be kind to them. They have never had a blow from me. They wouldn’t know what it meant,” Mr. Grey said, and Louie replied, “He will be kind; he told me so, and promised faithfully not to cut off their tails, as is the cruel fashion of the day, or curb them with one of those straight checks which fret them so. I never see a horse with his head reined so high that he can almost see his own back that I do not wish his master was obliged to have his head pulled back, while he was driven up hill and down, in heat and cold, dragging heavy loads after him and trying in vain to ease his aching neck.” “Yes, yes, Mr. Grey answered feebly. “It is wicked; it is cruel; and I am glad Jack and Jill will not be subjected to it. Good-bye, my pets, good-bye. I shall never see you again.”