it, especially over the well-formed nose, and
the white locks fell on the pillow behind. It may be wrong to say there
was a holy expression pervading the face; but it certainly gave that
impression to Lionel Verner.

"I wish all the world--when their time comes--could die as you are
dying, Matthew!" he exclaimed, in the impulse of his heart.

"Sir, all _might_, if they'd only live for it. It's many a year ago now,
Mr. Lionel, that I learned to make a friend of God: He has stood me in
good need. And those that do learn to make a friend of Him, sir, don't
fear to go to Him."

Lionel drew forward a chair and sat down in it. The old man continued--

"Things seemed to have been smoothed for me in a wonderful manner, sir.
My great trouble, of late years, has been Robin. I feared how it might
be with him when I went away and left him here alone; for you know the
queer way he has been in, sir, since that great misfortune; and I have
been a bit of a check on him, keeping him, as may be said, within
bounds. Well, that trouble is done away for me, sir; Robin he has got
his mind at rest, and he won't break out again. In a short while I am in
hopes he'll be quite what he used to be."

"Matthew, it was my firm intention to continue your annuity to Robin,"
spoke Lionel. "I am sorry the power to do so has been taken from me. You
know that it will not rest with me now, but with Mr. Massingbird. I fear
he is not likely to continue it."

"Don't regret it, sir. Robin, I say, is growing to be an industrious man
again, and he can get a living well. If he had stopped a
half-dazed-do-nothing, he might have wanted that, or some other help;
but it isn't so. His trouble's at rest, and his old energies are coming
back to him. It seems to have left my mind at leisure, sir; and I can go
away, praying for the souls of my poor daughter and of Frederick
Massingbird."

The name--_his_--aroused the attention of Lionel; more, perhaps, than he
would have cared to confess. But his voice and manner retained their
quiet calmness.

"What did you say, Matthew?"

"It was him, sir; Mr. Frederick Massingbird. It was nobody else."

Down deep in Lionel Verner's heart there had lain a conviction, almost
ever since that fatal night, that the man had been no other than the one
now spoken of, the younger Massingbird. Why the impression should have
come to him he could not have told at the time; something, perhaps, in
Frederick's manner had given rise to it.