The Novelist.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 227, 22 January 1876, Page 3

The Novelist.

READY-MONEY MORTIBOY. A MATTER-OF-FACT STORY. (From Cassell’s Magazine.) Chapter XI/V. (Continued.) Dick Mortiboy lunched in his own room, and then smoked the cigar of content and happiness. He embodied his discoveries at the Post Office in Great Bedford-street, in a short note to Grace Heathcote, and dispatched it to the pillar box by the woman who was in charge. This was the purport of it :—“ Frank calls for his letters, or has them called for by a young woman every Monday morning. We must wait till then. Next Monday I will be there.”

It was about three o’clock that a man, all in. rags and tatters, rang at the door bell. The old woman in charge—all the other lodgers were out of town—opened it and looked at him with suspicion. “I want Mr. Mortiboy.” “Give me your name, and I’ll see,” she said.

“He knows me. Let me pass.” The man pushed by her, and mounted the stairs. Dick’s sitting-room was at the back, second floor, a small room, but big enough for his purposes. He had, besides, a bedroom for himself, with a dressing-room, in which was a bed for the hoy.

He was sitting over his third cigar. He never read books, having lost the habit of reading long since. Sometimes he looked at the newspaper, but not often. He was, therefore, like Captain Bowker in one respect, that all his ideas were his own. To-day he was more happy and contented than he had ever been before since his return. All was going well with him. Grace would not have him. Very good.

“ If she be not fair to me, Wliat care I how fair she be ?” a quotation he certainly would have made, if he had known it. IJnromantic as it may seem, Dick cured himself of his passion by the simple expedient of giving the girl up. He loved her no longer. Men only really love a girl—with that blind, passionate devotion which burns her image upon their hearts in indelible characters, like a tattoo on the arm—between the ages of twenty and thirty. After that—experience. Men past the sixth lustrum know womankind better. They know the other sex because they know their own. They know that no women are perfect, and they suspect their own passion. Now suspicion to passion is like the sunshine to a coal fire—puts it out. Dick gave up his love with a mighty effort, because it was very strong. But having given it up, he gave it up altogether. There is no half measures with Dick. Thorough at all times. If Grace had accepted him, no husband could, have been more true and more faithful than he, more attentive, more thoughtful. Just as he had been a thorough rogue, just as he was going to be a thorough “ respectable,” just sohe would have been a thorough lover. But it could not be ; and therefore, as a philosopher, he acknowledged that it was better not to think of it. Now his plans were changed. To go away altogether, to take the boy with him he was now considering—even the thought of taking Thoozy, too, had crossed his mind—to come back after many years.. This was his new programme. As he lay back in his easy chair, his handsome face breathed a sweet spirit of hope and cheerfulness, and with every fresh cloud of tobacco came another castle of contentment and repose. His door opened. He looked round to see who it was, but started to his feet at sight of the miserable object before him. _Alcide Lafleur stood in the doorway. Ragged, starving, pinched, and footsore, his old partner stood there in front of him, staring at him with, haggard eyes., “ Good God ! man,” he said, “ what is this ?”

“ Did you not get my letter, Dick ?” “ To-day, this morning. What is this ?” “ First give me money to get food and clothes. lam almost starving.” Dick thrust all the money in his pockets into Lafleur’s hands. “Go quickly. Get things, and then come back. Take my latch-key, and return as soon as you can.” Lafleur took the money and the key, and crept away. Dick lit another cigar. But the current of his thoughts was rudely disturbed. The clouds of tobacco were angry and threatening now, and filled with colored pictures. He filled and drank three or four glasses of wine in succession. Then he sat down doggedly to wait, with his hands in his pockets. Presently the old woman came up.

“If you don’t; want me, sir,” she said, “'l’ve particular business, and should like to go out this afternoon.”

She resented the appearance of lodgers in. September, when everybody, including the landlady, was away ; and she was not inclined to put herself about, to please anybody. “Oh, yes,” said Dick ; “you can go. I’m not likely to want anything. Be back by nine ; the boy’s coming in then, and will want some supper.” It was a little before six when the front door slammed and a footfall sounded on the stairs.

A moment afterwards, M. Alcide Lafleur, washed, shaven, trimmed, and dressed, darkened the threshold of his old partner’s room. He was rehabilitated and, at least, externally restored to the semblance of his former state. “ Sacre /” he exclaimed, pinching up the sleeve of his new coat and turning it round “ What a climate !”

There were great rain spots on it. He wiped his new hat with his new cambric handkerchief.

“ Never mind the rain,” said Dick Mortiboy. “ Now tell me all about it. How came you to get into such a mess ?” “Light your gas, first, my friend,” said Lafleur ; “it is cursedly dark in this little hole ”

It was dark; tlie clouds were black : a thunderstorm had burst over London. Lick put a match to his g»s«Young Ready-money is the sobriquet the respectable citizens of your native village have conferred on their philanthropic millionare he continued, with that thm sneenng smile of his on his face. “ I think if Alcide Lafleur had either the title or the money he would somewhere in London have found, an apartment more distinguished than this is. He looked round Lick’s simple sitting-room and shrugged his shoulders Gentlemen of his temperament soon recover themselves. Ija ® had already recovered. He was the same ma that had got Lick Mortiboy out of the prison iuPalmiste; that had traded with him, run the blockade with him, gambled, swindled, and lied with him. Lafleur was unchanged But his partner was no longer Roaring Lick, and the company of his old companion was distasteful to him, his voice grated on his ear. “ The rooms do for me, Lafleur : nobody knows me, and if they did it would not matter.” __ , “Always so careless, so rough. My dear Richard, if I had your money,” he heaved a sigh : he thought of what he had given up m oiving back Lick's word to him. “Ah ! how unfortunate I have been—how lucky, you . and you are content with a hammock, a beefsteak, and a pot of beer ! ’ “ Have you actually lost all ? asked Lick “My cursed luck,” replied Lafleur, looking at the rain beating down the window. “ How it pelts ! Ma f»i !" > „ “ Never mind the ram; tell me all about it, said Lick a second time ; and Lafleur told his story. It took him half an hour to tell it, but briefly it was the story of every man who ever went to Hombourg to break the bank -except that lucky thousandth one who breaks it. _At first, luck was with Lafleur ; night after night he went home with every pocket stuffed with gold pieces. “ Dick, if you had been with me I should have landed the grand coup —twice —instead of myself. You have pluck dash elan. You would have carried out the System and piled the money on. I was a coward ; I hesitated. It came to putting down two thousand in one stake—the bank had been winning enormously, they would have covered any stake the cards seemed bedevilled. And I dared not do it. Like a mad fool I left the table. Lick, the next time did it. If I had only had pluck I should have landed myself with a profit of five thousand pounds on the run.” He laughed— “As I always told you, the more the run was against you the more you must win—at the end. My System is perfect. I was the fool.” , . . , “Well,” said Dick Mortiboy, “you had lost all?” Stay. “Half—all my winning and half the money I took with me. Cool as I am, old hand as I am, my dear Richard, my nerve was gone —for the time. Not at the run against rue. At my contemptible folly. I ran over to Wiesbaden and played a week at roulette. I won a five hundred there and then came back to Hombourg. The very same cursed luck attended me again. I had not pluck to put all my money down at one stake. I hesitated and wa3 lost again. My head was gone. I deserted my System and played with the reckless folly of a madman ” “ And you were cleaned out?” “ Lost every farthing. But, Dick, you would have saved me. The System is perfect. Carry it out, and I defy you to lose —my want of pluck beat me.” “A cool player, Lafleur, but you always wanted courage.” “ When all was gone I thought of you. I knew you would never turn your back on an old friend. I thought I would come back here to vou for more money.” Lick’s face, as he heard this confession, grew hard. “ I sold my clothes, and my rings, and watch ; but I lost money oh the way. I had only enough left to bring me to Newhaven. Dick, I have walked from Newhaven to London on tenpence, one franc, upon my honor. Of all my possessions, I have got nothing left but the six shooter you gave me ten years ago.” Lick got up and began to pace the room. “ Lafleur, let me say what I think, and then vou shall speak. Our partnership is dissolved. You have given me back my word. You know that I never say things unless T mean them—when I sought that dissolution, I meant a complete severance of our connection. I meant that you should have no claim upon me—not the least—for the future. I belong to a different world henceforth. Go your way, and let me go mine. That is what I mean still. I am not surprised that the System has broken down—they always do. No man ever yet could invent, or will invent, a scheme to meet the chances of luck. When it isn’t luck, it is skill. Now you know exactly what I mean, state exactly what you want me to do.”

Lafleur turned white. Tell an inventor that his model is worthless, the model over which he has grown grey : tell a poet that his poem is balderdash, the poem over which he has spent his life : tell a mathematician that his integrals are as useless as the medkeval scholasticism, those integrals on which he has sacrificed his youth—do all these things with impunity—you will only wound. But do not tell a gambler that his scheme is a mistake and a delusion. You will madden him. He clutched the arm of his chair, but said nothing. Lick went on.

“ You know, Lafleur, in spite of our dissolution, that I cannot let an old friend come to grief without my trying to help him. Now I will do this for you—l will give you five hundred now, on condition that you go to America, and I will send you a thousand when I know you have arrived. Think it over.” “ Go partners again with me, Dick, only in the System, you know. Come over to Hombourg, and play it yourself, -with your own splendid luck. Lick, we must win, I am certain we must win. Bring ten thousand with

you. I will be a half-partner, a quarterpartner, anything. Only let us try it once more.” “ No.” Lafleur made no further effort. He knew his man. “ I accept,” he,said after a few miutes. Lick took his cheque book and drew a cheque on his London agents for fiv e hundred What is the day of the month ? the twenty-third ? I have filled _it in with the twenty-second. Never mind, it will be all the same. Keep the condition, Lafleur, or I don’t keep mine.” “ Some men would threaten you, Lick, said Lafleur, pocketing the cheque. “I do not. I think you are treating me hardly, but I do not threaten.” “I should like to see the man who would threaten me,” said Dick calmly. Lafleur, whose whole bearing was changed, who had lost his ease and assurance, made no answer to this remark. “Give me some brandy,” he said after a pause ; “ I am a good deal shaken, I don t quite know what I am saying.” He drank a glass neat, and then had a tumbler of brandy and water mixed half-and-half fashion. “ Voila. I feel better,” he said, putting on a little of his. old style. He walked to the windows and looked out. “ How cursedly it pours down. What are we to do ?”

“You can stay and smoke a cigar.” They smoked for some minutes in unbroken silence. The only sound in - the room was the pelting of the rain against the window panes. “Disk, may I propose half an hour at euchre he said this doubtingly, half afraid that Dick would refuse. “It is a long time since we played—we may never > play again together—let us have a last game.” “I don’t mind playing a game or two, Lafleur,” he said. He took out his watch, “ It is half-past seven now, I shan’t play after nine ; I shall leave off as the clock strikes. I’ve got an engagement then,” The first half-hour was over. The clock struck eight and the rain had ceased. The luck was all on Dick’s side. He had won thirty pounds off Lafleur. It was scored down on a piece of paper. “ Shall we leave off ? You’re not in luck, and I don’t want to win.”

Lafleur begged him to go on. “ Lend me ten again.” Dick passed the money over the table, and made the score on the paper forty. At half-past eight the debt was a hundred. “ I won’t take the money of you,” said Dick.

“ You shall take it,” said Lafleur, tossing off another glass of brandy, “if you leave off a winner. Come on, deal the cards, we have only half-an-hour.” When half of that half-hour was gone, Dick Mortiboy sprang from his chair, leaned across the table, and brought his hand heavily upon the sleeve of his adversary’s coat. In it was a knave, the best card at euchre, which Dick dragged forth. “Swindler,” he cried, “you would even cheat me.” He pushed back his chair, turned over the table, and flung the cards in Lafleur’s face. “ Give me back my cheque,” he said sternly, “I have done with you.” Without saying a word, the Frenchman flew at him like a tiger cat. Dick stepped lightly aside, and received him with his left. He fell heavily. He rose again, however, in a moment, and went at him again. A second time he fell. This time he lay on the carpet with a livid face, and for a moment appeared not to move. But his white hand stole stealthily to his coat pocket. He half turned as if to rise, Dick watching him with flashing eyes, and then—then—the sharp crack of a pistol, a column of smoke, a heavy fall, and Dick Mortiboy lying flat on his face. Lafleur started to his feet. He had shot his adversary as he lay, without taking the pistol from his pocket. He leaned over Dick for a moment ; he did not move ; he turned him on his back ; his eyes were closed : he breathed heavily. He unbuttoned the waistcoat : the bullet had entered his chest : lie saw stains of blood upon his shirt. Then he went outside to the landing, and listened. Not a sound. He went to Dick’s open desk. In it were about twelve sovereigns and some notes. He took ten pounds in gold, leaving the notes : put two of them in Dick’s pocket. The keys were in the desk. He locked it, and placed them on the mantelpiece. He did this to prevent suspicion of robbery. Next he picked up the table, and hid the cards away, and put the furniture straight. Then he drank another glass of brandy. One thing he had forgotton—the pistol—he laid it in the hand of the fallen man. As he placed it in Lick’s hand, the fingers clutched over it.

And then fie took his hat and glided out of the room.

He came back a moment after, and bent over Lick’s face.

Lick neither moved nor spoke. Enough. Lafleur stole gently away, down the stairs, out of the house, stepping softly through the door. He closed it after him, but the latch did not hold. The clock of St. James’s church began to strike the hour of nine as he reached Piccadilly. There was not a soul in the house. Jermynstreet, in September, is a howling wilderness. No one, save people at the back, heard the pistol shot. No one saw Lafleur enter or go away, and Dick Mortiboy lay supine, the wet beads of death clustering on his forehead, his life blood welling away from his wound. Chapter XLVI. What did he think of, as he lay there ?—of his -wild life, his lawlessness, his crimes ?—of the singular chance which had landed him on the shores of respectability and fortune ;—of his aims and hopes for the future ? A man’s thought’s when Death stares him in the face, are comprehensive. He thinks of all. In a dream, even of half a minute’s duration, you may live through*a lifetime. The Eastern

monarch dipped his head into tub of water, and straightway left his sultanship and became a wanderer for twenty years. . At the end of that time he found himself lifting his head out of the water again. This adventure had taken him one minute to accomplish. A man told me that he slipped once in the Alps, and glided for two or three hundred feet, expecting instant death. He was pulled up, I forget how, and saved from death ; but in that brief space he lived all his life over again. The dying thief upon the cross, —model and ensample of all who repent at the last moment, —at the close of his last hour, when suffering gave way to torpor, and physical pain, one would fain hope, became only a deadened misery, may so have lived in a moment through all his life, and seen clearly what might have been. Who can tell what thoughts crowded into the brain of poor Dick Mortiboy, lying there alone and untended, stricken to death ? I, for one, cannot. I only know that he was softened and changed of late weeks : that many things had quite suddenly become clear to him ; that the old carelessness was changing into gravity ; that he was beginning to recognise the evil of his ways ; that life had changed its aspect. Wealth had done this for him ; wealth that works in many ways, turning the unselfish man into the voluptuary ; or the selfish man into one who lives and cares wholly for others. Wealth brings with it its curse or its blessing, just as its recipient is disposed. It is a means to make a Tiberius, or it may make its Here the law of libel interferes, or I might name one who has great wealth, a giant’s strength, and owns it but as a trust for the improvement, as best he can, of his fellows, a single-hearted, honest man, a rich man, for whom the needle’s eye is as easy to pass, as for the poorest pauper who breathes with resignation and dies with joy. So would it have been for my Dick Mortiboy. But at the moment when the tide was turned came the stroke of fate, and he who might have done so much, was forbidden to do anything. Ah ! the pity of it—the pity of it.

At nine o’clock—before the old woman returned—came back the boys from their day’s holiday. Laughing, radiant, happy, little Bill, followed by his limping companion, strangely diffident now, with his changed and glorified “ young ’un,” sprang up the steps of the house in Jermyn-street. They found the door open. “ Gome in, Thoozy ; come up with me. Uncle Dick said you was to come, you know.” Thoozy followed up the stairs, while Bill, running before with the impetuosity of a Peter, reached the door of Dick’s chamber, and opened it. The lamp was out. They stood in darkness. Only on the floor before them a black form. Bill stopped and looked. A blank dread filled his soul. He trembled ; he dared not speak. Behind him he heard Thoozy’s crutch as he limped up the stairs. He waited. “ What’s that, Thoozy ?” he whispered, pointing to the floor. Thoozy did not answer. The light on the staircase was in his eyes, and he could see nothing. The two boys, clinging to each other, stood shivering with fear, as in the doorway Thoozy made out, in the twilight, the figure of a man upon the floor. “ Go and get a light,” lie whispered. “Run, quick. Do you know where to find one ?” “ They’ve always one on the stairs,” replied the other. “ Don’t move, Thoozy ; don’t move ?”

He disappeared. As soon as he was gone, Thoozy entered the room, and, kneeling down, felt the face of the man who lay so still. It was that of Uncle Dick. He knew it by the long silken beard. A whisper reached his ears. “ Go—fetch a doctor quick. Get a light—water, for God's sake.” Bill returned at the moment. Thoozy snatched the candle from him, and got a carafe from the bedroom, from which he poured a few drops into the dying man’s mouth. He sprinkled his face. And then little Bill, who had watched him with pale face and trembling lips, fell headlong on the ground, Aveeping and sobbing, kissing the' cheeks and lips of his patron, and crying in his agony—“ Oh ! Uncle Lick—Uncle Dick.”

“Give him more water,” said Thoozy ; “I am going out for a doctor. Don’t let him move till I come back.”

Thoozy limped away, forgetting his crutch, and poor little Bill heard him descend step by step. He Avas left alone with Dick. Terrors of every kind assailed his heart. He could not speak. All he could do Avas to lie along the flooi’, his cheek against Dick’s to feel him breathing, to know that he Avas living. . . . Minutes that seemed hours passed slowly aAvay. At last he heard footsteps again. Thoozy Avas returning, bringing some one with him. It Avas the doctor. Thoozy’s good sense led him into Waterloo-place, Avhere he kneAv there was a policeman ; of him he got the address of the nearest surgeon. The policeman vvent Avith him, suspecting something Avrong. The doctor was at home, and came at once. He took the candle and began to examine his patient. A Aveak Avhisper greeted him. “ I have had an accident,” Dick murmured feebly. “ Half an hour ago —an old pistol—shot myself in the side —no one in the house to help me—left side—don’t move me—l am bleeding to death.” “ More light,” said the doctor, “ Boy, light that lamp.” It A\-as a moderator, the mechanism of Avhich Avas unknown to Thoozy. The policeman lit it. Then the doctor unbuttoned the Avaistcoat and looked for the Avound, On the floor lay the pistol ; he trod upon it. The policeman took it, and after carefully looking at it, placed it in his pocket. “ One chamber fired,” he murmured. “ Who is he ?” he asked Thoozy. “ J don’t knoAv. He knows. Bill knoAvs. He Avas a goin’ to do something for me ; he rraA'e me these clothes to-day, and told me to come at nine,” sobbed Thoozy. “Who is it?” The policeman called to little Bill.

“ Mr. Mortiboy,” said Bill, as if all the world knew him.

“ Does he live here always ?” “No : he lives at Market Basing,” said Bill, trembling, in spite of the last feAV Aveeks’ experience, at sight of a policeman. “ He’s my Uncle Dick.”

“He isn’t really his uncle,” Avhispered Thoozy.. “He took care o’little Bill. He's no relation at all—told me so hisself.” Meantime the doctor AA r as at Avork. His face greAV A r ery grave. Dick opened his eyes with an effort, and looked at him. “ Hoav long ?” he asked. “It is a very serious accident,” began the doctor.

“ Hoav long ?” repeated Dick, in a hoarse Avhisper. “ Perhaps half an hour.” “ Take paper, and let me make a statement to save trouble.”

“Speak very low,” Avhispered the doctor, “ I can hear. Do not exert yourself more than you can possibly help.” Dick began in a faint voice—- “ I Richard Melliship Mortiboy declare that I—haA r e—-accidently shot myself, Avhile preparing to clean my pistol.” You see, he Avas true to . his old partner to the very last. Went out of the Avorld Avith a lie on his lips, to save him. The doctor Avrote. “ Place the pen in my hand and guide me. I Avant to sign it, in presence of yourself and the policeman,” said the dying man. It Avas done. With faltering fingers Lick traced his name for the last time. “ HaA r e you any testamentary disposition to make or alter ?” “ Give me—water, —brandy,—something.” They held up his head—the forehead dank and cold, the cheeks pale, the eyes only opening from time to time Avith an effort—-and the doctor gave him a spoonful of brandy. This rev Ned him a little.

“Write,” he said. “ Dearest Cousin Gracie, lam dying. You can find Frank easily. All my money Avill be yours and Lucy’s. Let Frank and Ghrimes be partners. God bless you, my dear. If I had lived I Avould have—”

Here he stopped. Presently he Avent on again—- “ Remember that I love you for all you have done for me, but that I give you up freely and entirely. Let the money g® back to help the poor as much as may be.” He stopped again. Another sjioonful of brandy. “Tell my father—” Here he paused ; a strange look of beAvilderment crossed his face. “Ah !” he sighed, “it is no use uoav to tell him anything. I shall tell him myself.” The doctor thought he was wandering. “ Where is little Bill ?” he whispered. The doctor put the child’s face to his. “ Oh, Uncle Dick ! Don’t die ! Don’t die, Uncle Dick !”

Lick kissed the tear-Avet cheek that lay upon his cheek, and his head fell back. “ Poor little chap,” he murmured. They Avere his last Avords. A moment after, without a sigh or a groan, he turned his head to one side—they had brought a pilloAv from the bedroom—and opened his eyes no more. Dick Avas dead. All ! the pity of it—the pity of it.

“ Coroner’s inquest,” said the policeman. “ Were you here, my boys ?” “No,” said Thoozy. “We found him here. He told us to come at nine.” * Can Ave telegraph ?” said the doctor.

“Who to? We may look in the desk'. These boys can’t help us. Go to bed, my lads,” he said, in a kindly voice. “ You can’t do any good here.” Thoozy folloAved little Bill to his bedroom. Both Avere crying and lamenting. “Bill,” said Thoozy, after a pause, “it’s all over ; he won't help you and me no more. He’s dead, is Uncle Dick. Why couldn’t I die ? I’m no use in the Avorld to nobody. I’A r e got no money ; I’ve only got rhematiz. Why couldn’t I die, and Uncle Dick INe ? Come, Bill, it’s no use stopping here no longer. Let’s go, you and me.” “*Not back to Mother Kneebone’s,” said Bill.

“ No, not back to Kneebone’s. Let’s go a long way off, miles aAvay, Avhere they Avon’t find ns, and lh r e together. How much money haA-e you got, Bill.” “ I’\-e got a sovereign. He gaA-e it me yesterday.” “ I’ve got three shillin’. He gave it me today, and we’ve got our clothes. Let’s go* Bill.”

When they got into the street, Thoozy led the AA r ay eastward. They passed through CoA r ent-garden, and down Drury-lane. They walked up Fleet-street, Ludgate-hill, Cheapside, and so on to the Whitechapel-road. In fulness of time, after many stoppages—for they slept an hour on this doorstep, and an hour on that—they arrived, Avhen day broke, someAvhere in the East End of thereAvere masts of ships innumerable.^^ “It’s the dock’s,” said “Now Ave’ll wait and look about us.” '' jf>

In the afternoon of that fatal day old Hester Avas pushing Mr. Mortiboy’s Bath-chair slowly round the broad gravel paths, according to her AA'ont, in front of the house in Derngate. Lucy Heathcote Avalked by her uncle’s side, noAV and then saying a kind Avord to the old man, to rouse and cheer him. She had been morehopeful of his recovery of late days ; the Avorsfr symptoms had improved ; his _ eyes were brighter ; he had begun to be interested in little things about him ; and his features had’ gained back something of their old expression. In her hand Avas the Bible, from Avliicli she Avas reading fa\ - orite passages to her uncle. In health he neA r er Avould be “ read to,’ in his sickness he made no sign of dissent. Lucy s presence soothed him. He loved to have her near him. She kneAv he liked to hear her A-oice, though his poor palsied AA*its seemed'to have neither memory nor understanding. So she read on.

She was stopped by a loud cry from Hester. “Oh ! Miss Lucy ! look at your uncle, miss ! Oh ! what shall we do !”

Lucy dropped her Bible. The old man’s ■face was suddenly distorted feai’fully, and he lay back on his pillows breathing heavily and laboriously. He had had another stroke. The •girl thought he would die there ; Hester was helpless from fright. “ Run—run —for the nurse—then send for •Dr. Kirby—don’t lose a second,” cried Lucy. The nurse came from her tea with her mouth full of bread and butter. She was calm and unmoved in the young giiTs grief and the old servant’s terror. She was quite equal to the situation. It had been her business to see people die. She showed her superiority by giving her orders calmly. Hester was despatched for the doctor. “ There’s death in his face, miss. Let us take him in. He won’t be with us many hours now.” Sobbing grievously, Lucy lent her hand to wheel the dying man into his bedroom. The window opened on to the lawn. “ Oh, how horrible it seems, nurse ! Oh ! let us try to get him out of his chair ! Oh ! poor Uncle Richard —my dear—my dear !” He was a heavy weight—dead weight—-for he could not move hand or foot —both sides were palsied now ; but the arms of the nurse were as strong as a man’s. With little help from Lucy she got him on to his bed. The girl—sole one among his relatives who had ever loved old Ready-money Mortiboy—fell on her knees by the bedside and prayed to •God.

The old man turned his eyes towards her. She saw he was still conscious.

“Oh ! uncle,” she implored, “ try-—try to pray—try to follow my words. Uncle Richard,” she cried in an agony of grief, “oh ! Uncle Richard—try to make your peace with God.” But Mr. Mortiboy was unconscious again. The doctors came in a few minutes. Their language was plain ; they did not try to disguise the truth. The period of the old man’s fife might be reckoned in minutes. They could do nothing—but they stayed to see the end. Ghrimes was sent for. He alone knew Dick’s London address. It was past eight o’clock before he came back from the country, where he had been on business. He came—touched his old master’s powerless, helpless hand, and hurried away to the telegraph office _to summon Dick from London. Vain errand ! Bor five hours from the time of his last stroke the old man lay on his bed like one dead. He breathed, but every moment with less strength. To Lucy Heathcote it seemed like five days. Her father and mother were there with her, but she thought only of him who lay dying with them all round his bed. The death struggle came at nine o’clock. There was an inarticulate sound first from the old man’s lips. Then he spoke. They all heard it. He said—“ My—son—Dick,” and lay there dead. “ Dick ought to be here, at half-past ten,” John Heathcote whispered to his wife.