No one was sleeping now, and there were lights, and whisperings, and pale faces in the corridors near Sir Hugh's bedroom, and now some one went in, and now some one came out, but every one made way for Nurse Macdonald, who had nursed Sir Hugh's father more than eighty years ago. The light was soft and clear in the room. There stood Gabriel Ockram by his father's bedside, and there knelt Evelyn Warburton, her hair lying like a golden shadow down her shoulders, and her hands clasped nervously together. And opposite Gabriel, a nurse was trying to make Sir Hugh drink. But he would not, and though his lips were parted, his teeth were set. He was very, very thin and yellow now, and his eyes caught the light sideways and were as yellow coals. "Do not torment him," said Nurse Macdonald to the woman who held the cup. "Let me speak to him, for his hour is come." "Let her speak to him," said Gabriel in a dull voice. So the ancient woman leaned to the pillow and laid the feather-weight of her withered hand, that was like a brown moth, upon Sir Hugh's yellow fingers, and she spoke to him earnestly, while only Gabriel and Evelyn were left in the room to hear. "Hugh Ockram," she said, "this is the end of your life; and as I saw you born, and saw your father born before you, I am come to see you die. Hugh Ockram, will you tell me the truth?" The dying man recognised the little faraway voice he had known all his life, and he very slowly turned his yellow face to Nurse Macdonald; but he said nothing. Then she spoke again. "Hugh Ockram, you will never see the daylight again. Will you tell the truth?" His toad-like eyes were not yet dull. They fastened themselves on her face. "What do you want of me?" he asked, and each word struck hollow upon the last. "I have no secrets. I have lived a good life." Nurse Macdonald laughed--a tiny, cracked laugh, that made her old head bob and tremble a little, as if her neck were on a steel spring. But Sir Hugh's eyes grew red, and his pale lips began to twist. "Let me die in peace," he said slowly. But Nurse Macdonald shook her head, and her brown, moth-like hand left his and fluttered to his forehead. "By the mother that bore you and died of grief for the sins you did, tell me the truth!" Sir Hugh's lips tightened on his discoloured teeth. "Not on earth," he answered slowly. "By the wife who bore your son and died heartbroken, tell me the truth!" "Neither to you in life, nor to her in eternal death." His lips writhed, as if the words were coals between them, and a great drop of sweat rolled across the parchment of his forehead. Gabriel Ockram bit his hand as he watched his father die. But Nurse Macdonald spoke a third time. "By the woman whom you betrayed, and who waits for you this night, Hugh Ockram, tell me the truth!" "It is too late. Let me die in peace." The writhing lips began to smile across the set yellow teeth, and the toad eyes glowed like evil jewels in his head.