ut it gently in his hand.

Once when the Little Chemist touched his wrist, his dark eyes rested on
him with inquiry, and he said: "Soon?"

It was useless trying to shirk the persistency of that look. "Eight
hours, perhaps, sir," the Little Chemist answered, with painful shyness.

The Seigneur seemed to draw himself up a little, and his hand grasped
his handkerchief tightly for an instant; then he said: "Soon. Thank
you."

After a little, his eyes turned to Medallion and he seemed about to
speak, but still kept silent. His chin dropped on his breast, and for
a time he was motionless and shrunken; but still there was a strange
little curl of pride--or disdain--on his lips. At last he drew up his
head, his shoulders came erect, heavily, to the carved back of the
chair, where, strange to say, the Stations of the Cross were figured,
and he said, in a cold, ironical voice: "The Angel of Patience has
lied!"

The evening wore on, and there was no sound, save the ticking of the
clock, the beat of rain upon the windows, and the deep breathing of the
Seigneur. Presently he started, his eyes opened wide, and his whole body
seemed to listen.

"I heard a voice," he said.

"No one spoke, my master," said the housekeeper.

"It was a voice without," he said.

"Monsieur," said the Little Chemist, "it was the wind in the eaves."

His face was almost painfully eager and sensitively alert.

"Hush!" he said; "I hear a voice in the tall porch."

"Sir," said Medallion, laying a hand respectfully on his arm, "it is
nothing."

With a light on his face and a proud, trembling energy, he got to his
feet. "It is the voice of my son," he said. "Go--go, and bring him in."

No one moved. But he was not to be disobeyed.

His ears had been growing keener as he neared the subtle atmosphere of
that Brink where man strips himself to the soul for a lonely voyaging,
and he waved the woman to the door.

"Wait," he said, as her hand fluttered at the handle. "Take him to
another room. Prepare a supper such as we used to have. When it is ready
I will come. But, listen, and obey. Tell him not that I have but four
hours of life. Go, good woman, and bring him in."

It was as he said. They found the son weak and fainting, fallen within
the porch--a worn, bearded man, returned from failure and suffering and
the husks of evil. They clothed him and cared for him, and strengthened
him with wine, while the woman wept over him and at last set him at th