rdon of Kircudbright, was the one who
embarked, or ought to have embarked, on the _Morning Star_, homeward
bound," said Mr. Carr. And he forthwith told Lord Hartledon what the man
had said.

A silence ensued. Lord Hartledon was in deep and evidently not pleasant
thought; and the barrister stole a glance at him.

"Hartledon, take comfort. I am as cautious by nature as I believe it is
possible for any one to be; and I am sure the man is dead, and can never
rise up to trouble you."

"I have been sure of that for years," replied Hartledon quietly. "I have
just said so."

"Then what is disturbing you?"

"Oh, Carr, how can you ask it?" came the rejoinder. "What is it lies on
my mind day and night; is wearing me out before my time? Discovery may be
avoided; but when I look at the children--at the boy especially--it would
have turned some men mad," he more quietly added, passing his hand across
his brow. "As long as he lives, I cannot have rest from pain. The sins of
the fathers--"

"Yes, yes," interposed Mr. Carr, hastily. "Still the case is light,
compared with what we once dreaded."

"Light for me, heavy for him."

Mr. Carr remained with them until the Monday: he then went back to London
and work; and time glided on again. An event occurred the following
winter which shall be related at once; more especially as nothing of
moment took place in those intervening months needing special record.

The man Pike, who still occupied his shed undisturbed, had been ailing
for some time. An attack of rheumatic fever in the summer had left him
little better than a cripple. He crawled abroad still when he was able,
and _would_ do so, in spite of what Mr. Hillary said; would lie about the
damp ground in a lawless, gipsying sort of manner; but by the time winter
came all that was over, and Mr. Pike's career, as foretold by the
surgeon, was drawing rapidly to a close. Mrs. Gum was his good Samaritan,
as she had been in the fever some years before, going in and out and
attending to him; and in a reasonable way Pike wanted for nothing.

"How long can I last?" he abruptly asked the doctor one morning. "Needn't
fear to say. _She_'s the only one that will take on; I shan't."

He alluded to Mrs. Gum, who had just gone out. The surgeon considered.

"Two or three days."

"As much as that?"

"I think so."

"Oh!" said Pike. "When it comes to the last day I should like to see Lord
Hartledon."

"Why the last day?"

The man's pinch