se at daybreak in search of his father, and found him lying,
apparently dead, within sight of his own door.

With Mary's assistance, he carried him into the house. Medical aid was
called in, and all had been done that man could do to alleviate the
sufferings of the injured farmer, but with little effect. The man had
received a mortal blow, and the doctor, when he left that evening, had
pronounced the fatal sentence that his case was hopeless; that, in all
probability, he would expire before the morning.

As the night drew on, the elder Mathews became quite unconscious of
surrounding objects, and but for the quick hard breathing, you would
have imagined him already dead.

The door of the cottage was open, to admit the fresh air; and in the
door way, revealed by the solitary candle which burnt upon the little
table by the bed-side, stood the tall athletic figure of William
Mathews. His sister was sitting in a low chair by the bed's head, her
eyes fixed with a vacant stare upon the heavy features of the dying man.

"William," she said, in a quick deep voice, "where are you? Do come and
watch with me. I do not like to be alone."

"You are not alone," returned the ruffian sullenly; "I am here; and some
one else is here whom you cannot see."

"Whom do you mean?"

"The devil, to be sure," responded her brother. "He is always near us;
but never more near than in the hour of death and the day of judgment."

"Good Lord, deliver us!" said the girl, repeating unconsciously aloud
part of the liturgy of the Church to which nominally she belonged.

"All in good time," responded the human fiend. "Has father shown any
sign of returning sense since the morning?"

"No, he has remained just in the same state. William, will he die?"

"You may be sure of that, Mary. Living men never look as he does now."

"It is a terrible sight," said his sister. "I always did hope that I
should die before father; but since I got into this trouble I have
wished that he might never live to know it. That was sin, William. See
how my wicked thoughts have become prophecy. Yet I am so glad that he
never found out my crime, that it makes the tears dry in my eyes to see
him thus."

"You make too much fuss about your condition, girl! What is done cannot
be undone. All you can now do is to turn it to the best possible
account."

"What do you mean, William?"

"Make money by it."

"Alas," said the girl, "what was given away freely cannot be redeemed