er the helpless form of his employer. There was no recognition
in the glazed eyes, and the hand, which he just touched with his own,
was nerveless and dead already.

With a silent nod to the doctor Mr Armstrong left the room, and was
presently once more ploughing on horseback through the deep snow.

It was well this man was a man of iron and master of himself, or he
might have flagged under this new effort, with the distressing prospect
awaiting him at his journey's end.

As it was, he urged doggedly forward, forgetful of the existence of such
an individual as Frank Armstrong, and dwelling only on the dying man
behind and the mourners ahead.

The clock was chiming one in Castleridge Church when at length he reined
up his spent horse at the stable entrance to the Grange. Here for a
weary quarter of an hour he rang, called, and whistled before the
glimmer of a lantern gave promise of an answer.

To the stable-boy's not altogether polite inquiry, Mr Armstrong
replied, "Mr Ingleton of Maxfield is ill. Call Robbins, and tell him
to put the horses in immediately, to take his mistress and Mr Roger
home; and get some one in the house to call them. Don't delay an
instant."

This peremptory speech fairly aroused the sleepy stable-boy, and in a
few minutes Mr Armstrong was standing in the hall of the Grange talking
to a footman.

"Take me up to his room," said he, pushing the bewildered servant before
him up the staircase.

The man, not at all sure that he was not in the grip of an armed
burglar, ascended the stair in a maze, not daring to look behind him.

At the end of a corridor he stopped.

"Is that the room? Give me the lamp! Go and tell your master to get
up. Say a messenger has come with bad news from Maxfield; and look
here--put some wraps in the carriage, and have some coffee or wine ready
in the hall in ten minutes."

The fellow, greatly reassured by this short parley, went off to fulfil
his instructions, while the tutor, with what was very like a sigh,
opened the door and entered his pupil's bedroom.

Roger Ingleton, minor, lay sound asleep, with his arms behind his head
and a smile on his resolute lips. As the light of the lamp fell on his
face, it looked very pale, with its frame of black curly hair and the
deep fringe of its long eyelashes; but the finely-chiselled nostrils and
firm mouth redeemed it from all suspicion of weakness. Even as he slept
you might judge this lad of nineteen had a wi