While the man stared eagerly, disbelievingly, and the Bishop stood
holding the little black ball between thumb and fore-finger, Ruth
Lansing came back into the room.

Seeing her father's eyes open, the girl rushed across the room and was
about to throw herself down by the side of the couch when her father's
voice, scarcely more than a whisper, but audible and clear, stopped
her.

"The White Horse Chaplain!" he said in a voice of slow wonder. "But I
always knew he'd come for me sometime. And I suppose it's time."

The Bishop started. He had not heard the name for twenty-five years.

The girl stopped by the table, trembling and frightened. She had heard
the tale of the White Horse Chaplain many times. Her sense told her
that her father was delirious and raving. But he spoke so calmly and
so certainly. He seemed so certain that the man he saw was an
apparition that she could not think or reason herself out of her
fright.

The Bishop answered easily and quietly:

"Yes, Lansing, I am the Chaplain. But I did not think anybody
remembered now."

Tom Lansing's eyes leaped wide with doubt and question. They stared
full at the Bishop. Then they turned and saw the table standing in its
right place; saw Ruth Lansing standing by the table; saw the dog at
the fireplace. The man there was real!

Tom Lansing made a little convulsive struggle to rise, then fell back
gasping.

The Bishop put his hand gently under the man's head and eased him to a
better position, saying:

"It was just a chance, Lansing. I was driving past and had broken a
trace, and came in to borrow one from you. You got a bad blow. But
your girl has just sent my driver for help. They will get a doctor
somewhere. We cannot tell anything until he comes. It perhaps is not
so bad as it looks." But, even as he spoke, the Bishop saw a drop of
blood appear at the corner of the man's white mouth; and he knew that
it was as bad as the worst.

The man lay quiet for a moment, while his eyes moved again from the
Bishop to the girl and the everyday things of the room.

It was evident that his mind was clearing sharply. He had rallied
quickly. But the Bishop knew instinctively that it was the last,
flashing rally of the forces of life--in the face of the on-crowding
darkness. The shock and the internal hemorrhage were doing their work
fast. The time was short.

Evidently Tom Lansing realised this, for, with a look, he called the
girl to him.

Through the seven