The carriage driver was picked up senseless in the street, where the maddened horses had hurled him in their swift rush to destruction. Luckily, he had escaped the contact of their iron hoofs, and his injuries, though serious, were not mortal. But that poor sinner who, in the commission of a dastardly crime, had been overtaken by a swift and just Nemesis, how fared he? They placed him on a litter and bore him into the nearest house. Men looked at that crushed and bleeding semblance of poor humanity, and, turning away, shuddered with horror. The physician came, and shook his head. "My poor fellow, you can live but a few hours more," he said. "Tell us who your friends are that we may summon them." "Are you sure, quite sure, that I must die?" moaned the sufferer, while the dews of terror beaded the weakly, handsome face which had escaped the vicious hoofs that had beaten the life from his body. "You cannot possibly live but a few hours longer," repeated the physician as kindly as he could speak, and with a deep pity on his face that would not have been there could he have guessed that the wretch had wrought his own destruction. Moans of terror and despair welled over the man's blanched lips when he realized that death was so near him. He begged that a priest might be sent for to pray the pardon of Heaven on his sinful soul. "And your friends," they asked him, "shall we not bring them, too?" With a moan of pain he answered: "Send some one with a swift horse to overtake Clarence Stuart, who is returning to his villa in the suburbs. Tell him Julius Revington is dying, and--the lady--who was in the carriage--with the runaway horses--if she is living, bring her to me with all haste." CHAPTER XLIII. The willing hearts were not wanting to do the bidding of the dying man. Messengers went in three different directions, while the physician remained to assuage by all means that lay in his power the agonies that racked that tortured form. Anon the priest came, and with prayers and holy words strove to comfort the poor departing soul. The swiftest horse in Florence went clattering over the road in pursuit of the carriage that held Clarence Stuart and his wife and daughter. It was soon overtaken, and the ominous message flashed like a thunder-clap upon their startled senses. Mrs. Stuart and Lilia uttered shrieks of the wildest dismay. But Clarence Stuart, after the first shock of surprise, regained his self-possession. "I must go to him at once," he said. "Mrs. Stuart, I must transfer you and Lilia to one of the other carriages while I return to poor Julius." To his surprise the lady answered, in sharp, hysterical tones: "Lilia may go in the carriage with Mrs. Leslie, but I shall return with you to the death-bed of poor Julius." "I object to your doing so. It may be an unpleasant ordeal for a lady of your delicate nerves," Mr. Stuart said, almost sternly.