"I am lying in my last bed save one, Roland," said the sufferer, in low concentrated voice; "we have not all died in our beds, we Ruthvens of that ilk, but it shall be said that all have died with honour except----" "Except _who_, father?" The old man trembled as if with ague, and closed his eyes, as he said hoarsely-- "I cannot tell you--in time you will know all!" "You have been a good soldier to the Queen, father." "But a bad servant to her Master." "Do not speak thus!" said Roland, imploringly. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness; and I have been bad, evil, wicked--false!" "This is some fancy." "It is _not_!" said Patrick Ruthven, emphatically. "Then can I make amends?" "You may, if it is not too late, my poor Roland. Oh, my God!" These mysterious words filled the listener with genuine grief and alarm. Was it all some hallucination? What did they import or refer to? For much in his father's moody and wayward life, in his latter years especially, seemed to corroborate them, and to hint that there was "a skeleton in the house," as the doctor had ventured to say. "I will have no clergyman about me," said the sufferer, petulantly and almost passionately, in reply to some remark of Roland's. "Why?" "I hope to make my peace with God alone. The Reverend Ephraim Howie, to whom I gave the living of Ardgowrie! What can he, or such as he, do for me now?" "Oh, father!" "No one ever prospered who grew rich by fraud, it has been said--yet have I, in a manner, prospered," added the old man, as if communing with himself. "You, father?" exclaimed Roland, whose blood seemed to grow very cold. "Yes--I." "How--how?" "I cannot--dare not tell you. Hush!" he added, glancing stealthily about, as Mr. Runlet, the butler, placed two shaded candles, in massive antique silver holders, on the toilet table, and withdrew, and Roland thought-- "Poor old man--his mind wanders!" "My mind is _not_ wandering." "I never said so, father." "But you seem to think so--I can read it in your eyes. I have been successful in life, and leave at death a handsome fortune to one who has _no_ right to it--_you_, my son--you whom I love better than my own soul!" he exclaimed, in a broken voice that seemed full of tears, and a great horror began to possess the heart of the listener. "Oh heaven--heaven! he is mad!" "Would that I had died at the head of the Royals, when I led them at Nagpore!" Intense perplexity mingled with the natural grief of Roland, for the whole tenor of this interview was so utterly beyond all that he could have anticipated. In a half fatuous manner, the patient was muttering to himself, and in great agony of mind, Roland listened intently. "Live it down, people say--I have lived it down--it was never known indeed! Poor Philip--poor Philip! One may live down a lie, but not the truth--it is the truth that hurts--that never may be lived down. I ever thought a day of retribution would come, and it is coming--fast!"