burning on a small pine table, and surveyed him, as it were,
from the verge of his own fast failing life, with moans of mingled pain
and weariness, amid which Thomas thought he heard the accents of a
supreme satisfaction.

Meanwhile in Thomas himself, as he stood there, the sense of complete
desolation filled his breast almost to bursting. To have come home for
this! To find a father only to be weighed in the scales of that father's
judgment! To be admired, instead of loved!

As he realized his position and listened to the shrieking of the wind
and rain, he felt that the wail of the elements but echoed the cry of
his own affections, thus strangled in their birth. Indeed the sensations
of that moment made so deep an impression upon him that he was never
afterward able to hear a furious gust of wind or rain without the
picture rising up before him of this great hollow room, with the
trembling figure of his father struggling in the grasp of death and
holding it at bay, while he gauged with worldly wisdom the physical,
mental, and moral advantages of the son so long banished and so lately
restored to his arms.

A rush of impetuous words followed by the collapse of his father's form
upon the pillow showed that the examination was over. Rushing forward,
he grasped again that father's hands, but soon shrank back, stunned by
what he heard and the prospect it opened before him. A few of his
father's words will interpret the rest. They came in a flood, and among
others Thomas caught these:

"The grace of God be thanked! Our efforts have not failed. Handsome,
strong, noble in look and character, we could ask nothing more, hope for
nothing more. My revenge will succeed! John Poindexter will find that he
has a heart, and that that heart can be wrung. I do not need to live to
see it. For me it exists now; it exists here!" And he struck his breast
with hands that seemed to have reserved their last strength for this
supreme gesture.

John Poindexter! Who was he? It was a new name to Thomas. Venturing to
say so, he reeled under the look he received from his father's eyes.

"You do not know who John Poindexter is, and what he has done to me and
mine? They have kept their promise well, too well, but God will accord
me strength to tell you what has been left unsaid by them. He would not
bring me up to this hour to let me perish before you have heard the
story destined to make you the avenger of innocence upon that enemy of
your rac