'I'm right down tired out,' he said; 'I shall sleep now.' And sleep he did till the cold hour of the dawn, when there came a brief waking interval, before the longest, soundest sleep of all. He opened his eyes then. 'It's nearly over,' he said; 'my boys--my boys!' He called for them both, but it was Dick on whose broad breast the dying head rested. It was Dick who caught the last loving, whispered words, felt the last faint hand pressure, soothed the last pang, caught the last look. For when Aunt Letitia hurried to their rooms, it was Dick who opened his door before she reached it, and, fully dressed, sprang to his father's bedside. Roland was in the sound sleep that often follows violent emotion, and it was hard to rouse him. He came in softly just as his brother laid gently down on the pillow the worn old face, at rest at last, and closed the kindly eyes that would never meet Roland's any more. Never any more! CHAPTER II. A NARROW ESCAPE. The curtain had fallen on the last scene of the most popular play in London. The appreciative criticism of the pit and the tearful sympathy of the upper boxes were alike merging in one common thought, that of 'something nice for supper.' The gallery was already empty. Its occupants were thirstier and more prompt of action than the loungers in the stalls and boxes. Ladies, a little flushed by the exertion of fighting their way through the ranks of their peers, were silently disputing for precedence in front of the looking-glasses in the cloak-rooms, while their cavaliers, already invested with overcoat and wrapper, were pacing the carpeted corridor outside with a very poor show of patience. The most impatient of them all was a stout, rubicund old gentleman in a dark coat, who trotted fretfully up and down, and now and then even ventured to peep in through the door at the chaos of silks and laces, raised shawls, and suspended bonnets, in some component part of which he evidently had an interest.