I was too anguished and distraught to reject even this little thread of hope. Perhaps it was in me that at the last moment the sight of that stricken figure at home might move the cold cynicism of the man before me to some weak warmth of charity. He bade me wait in the hall while he finished his breakfast and I had nothing for it but to go and sit down under the row of smoky prints. He kept me a deliberate while, and then came forth leisurely and donned his brown coat, that was hanging like a decayed pirate beside me. We walked out together. The mill greeted us with no jarring thunder as we entered its door, for the discord of its phantom grinding I had myself silenced. I listened as we climbed the wooden stairs for any sound from the room above, but only the echo of our footfalls reverberated in the lonely house. No sign of old Peggy had I seen, but, when I pushed open the door of my father’s room there she was standing by his bed and leaning over. At the noise of our entrance she twisted her head, gave a sort of sudden pee-wit cry and tumbled upon the floor in a collapsed heap, the tablet from the bed in her hand. CHAPTER LIV. A LAST CONFESSION. I thought that the old woman, startled by our entrance, had merely stepped back, tripped and so come to the ground; but the doctor uttered an exclamation, ran to the prostrate figure and called me to bring a spongeful of water from the wash-hand-stand. When I had complied I saw that the ancient limbs were rigid; the teeth set, the lips foaming slightly. Peggy was in an epileptic fit and that at her age was no light matter. I feared that her struggles might presently wake my father, who was to all appearance sleeping peacefully, and asked the doctor if it would not be possible to move her to another room. He shook his head, but gave no answer. Suddenly I was conscious that his eyes were fixed upon the tablet still held in her crooked fingers, and that in my distraction I had not erased the damning words that were traced thereon. The wet sponge was in my hand. With a quick movement I stooped and swept it across the surface. As I did so the doctor slewed his head round and smirked up at me with a truly diabolical expression. Then he snatched the sponge and plumped it with a slap on the withered forehead. The soot from the tablet ran in wet streaks over the sinister old face and made a grotesque horror of it. The wretched creature moaned and jerked under the shock, as though the water were biting acid. Not a word was spoken between us for full twenty minutes--not till the fit at length subsided and left the racked body to the rest of exhaustion. The eyes became human, with what humanity was left them; the pallid face fell into its usual lines--the old woman lay flat with closed lids in the extreme of debility. Then said Dr. Crackenthorpe: “Take you her feet and I her head and we’ll move her out of this.”