Madeline returns to the drawing-room, untenanted now save by the
officers and their prisoner. They are waiting there until the midnight
train shall be due, and the time approaches. Moving quite near to the
now silent, sullen villain, the girl surveys him with absolute
loathing.

"The goddess you worship has deserted you, Lucian Davlin," she says,
slowly. "It was not in the book of chance that you should triumph over
or outwit me. The bullet you designed for me has completed the work
you began five years ago. Go, to live a convict, or die on the
scaffold, and when you think upon the failure of your villainous
schemes, remember that this retribution has been wrought by a woman's
hand! Officers, take him away!"

Through the darkness they hurry him, from the sights and scenes of
Oakley and Bellair--forever. His goddess has indeed forsaken him. When
the two officers take leave of him at the prison, he has had his last
glimpse of the outside world.

[Illustration: "Edward Percy falls to the floor, the blood gushing
from a wound in the breast!"--page 439.]

From the moment when he failed in his attempt upon the life that had
defied him, no word had escaped his lips. Silent, moody, and utterly
hopeless, this proud-spirited, evil-hearted Son of Chance, enters
the prison gates, and, as they close upon him, we have done with
Lucian Davlin, a _convict for life_!

CHAPTER XLIX.

AS THE FOOL DIETH.

Edward Percy is dying--was dying when they lifted him from the
drawing-room carpet, and gently laid him on the couch hastily prepared
by Hagar and the frightened servants. They have watched beside him
through the night, and now, in the gray of the morning, Clarence
Vaughan still keeps his vigil.

The wounded man moves feebly, and turns his fast dimming eyes toward
the watcher. "I thought--I saw--some one," he says, brokenly, "when--I
fell. Who--was--the lady?"

His voice dies away, as Clarence, bending over him, answers gently:
"You mean the lady that stood near the door, whose face was turned
away?"

"Yes," in a whisper; "was it--my--wife?"

Clarence turns toward the window where Mrs. Ralston sits, out of view
of the sick man.

She moves forward a little. "Tell him," she says, in a low voice.

Edward Percy is a dying man, but his mind was never clearer. He
perfectly comprehends the explanations made by Clarence. He had
recognized the face of his wife when he lay bleeding at her feet. He
closes his eyes and is