"I have warned him again and again: but he was working so magnificently, that one had hardly heart to stop him. And beside, nothing would part him from his maid." "I don't wonder at that:" quoth Tom to himself. "Is she with him?" "No: he found himself ill; slipped home on some pretence; and will not hear of our telling her." "Noble old fellow! Caring for every one but himself to the last." And they went in. It was one of those rare cases, fatal, yet merciful withal, in which the poison seems to seize the very centre of the life, and to preclude the chance of lingering torture, by one deadening blow. The old man lay paralysed, cold, pulseless, but quite collected and cheerful. Tom looked, inquired, shook his head, and called for a hot bath of salt and water. "Warmth we must have, somehow. Anything to keep the fire alight." "Why so, sir?" asked the old man "The fire's been flickering down this many a year. Why not let it go out quietly, at three-score years and ten? You're sure my maid don't know?" They put him into his bath, and he revived a little. "No; I am not going to get well; so don't you waste your time on me, sirs! I'm taken while doing my duty, as I hoped to be. And I've lived to see my maid do hers, as I knew she would, when the Lord called on her. I have,--but don't tell her, she's well employed, and has sorrows enough already, some that you'll know of some day--" "You must not talk," quoth Tom, who guessed his meaning, and wished to avoid the subject. "Yes, but I must, sir. I've no time to lose. If you'd but go and see after those poor Heales, and come again. I'd like to have one word with Mr. Headley; and my time runs short." "A hundred, if you will," said Frank. "And now, sir," when they were alone, "only one thing, if you'll excuse an old sailor," and Willis tried vainly to make his usual salutation; but the cramped hand refused to obey,--"and a dying one too." "What is it?" "Only don't be hard on the people, sir; the people here. They're good-hearted souls, with all their sins, if you'll only take them as you find them, and consider that they've had no chance." "Willis, Willis, don't talk of that! I shall be a wiser man henceforth, I trust. At least I shall not trouble Aberalva long." "Oh, sir, don't talk so; and you just getting a hold of them!" "I?" "Yes, you, sir. They've found you out at last, thank God. I always knew what you were and said it. They've found you out in the last week; and there's not a man in the town but what would die for you, I believe." This announcement staggered Frank. Some men it would have only hardened in their pedantry, and have emboldened them to say: "Ah! then these men see that a High Churchman can work like any one else, when there is a practical sacrifice to be made. Now I have a standing ground which no one can dispute from which to go on, and enforce my idea of what he ought to be."