Nameless remembered the letter which Frank had given him, and now took it from the side pocket of his coat. He surveyed it attentively. It bore his name, "GULIAN VAN HUYDEN." "What does it contain?" he asked himself the question mentally, little dreaming of the fatal burden which the letter bore. The sleeping man awoke, and gazed around the apartment with large, lack-luster eyes. At the same time, with his emaciated hand, he tried to clutch the sunbeam which trembled over his shoulder. Nameless felt his heart leap to his throat at the sight of this pitiful wreck of genius. "Do you not know me, master?" exclaimed Nameless, pressing the hand of the afflicted man, and fixing his gaze earnestly upon his face. Was it an idle fancy? Nameless thought he saw something like a ray of intelligence flit across that stricken face. "It is I, Carl Raphael, your pupil, your son!" As though the sound of that voice had penetrated even the sealed consciousness of hopeless idiocy, the aged artist slightly inclined his head, and there was a strange tremulousness in his glance. "Carl Raphael, your son!" repeated Nameless, and clutched the hands of the artist. Again that tremulousness in the glance of the artist, and then,--as though a film had fallen from his eyes,--his gaze was firm, and bright, and clear. It was like the restoration of a blind man to sight. His gaze traversed the room, and at length rested on the face of Nameless. "Carl!" he cried, like one, who, awaking from a troubled dream, finds, unexpectedly, by his bed a familiar and beloved face--"Carl, my son!" Mary heard that voice; it roused her from her slumber. Starting up, she pressed her father's hands. "O, Carl, Carl, he knows you! Thank God! thank God!" "Mary," said the father, gazing upon her earnestly, like one who tries to separate the reality of his waking hours from the images of a past dream. First upon one face, then upon the other, he turned his gaze, meanwhile, in an absent manner, joining the hand of Mary and the hand of Carl. "Carl! Mary!" he repeated the names in a low voice, and laid his hands gently on their heads.--"I thought I had lost you, my children. Carl and Mary," he repeated their names again,--"Carl and Mary! God bless you, my children; and now----" he surveyed them with his large, bright eyes, "and now I must sleep." His head fell gently forward on his breast, and he fell asleep to wake no more in this world. His mind had made its last effort in the recognition of Mary and Nameless. For a moment it flashed brightly in its socket, and then went out forever. He was dead. Nay, not dead, but he was,--to use that inexpressibly touching thought, in which the very soul and hope of Christianity is embodied,--"_asleep in Christ_."