moment
the child had disappeared.

In an instant Percy was off his horse, and, with the agility of a
practiced athlete, had swung himself on the parapet. Yes, he could see
the eddy where the child had sunk; and in another moment he had dived
into the dark water.

"It was a plucky thing to do, sir," observed a navvy who had seen the
whole proceeding, and who afterward retailed it to Erle Huntingdon; "I
don't know as ever I saw a pluckier thing in my life. Ay, and the poor
young gentleman would have done it too, for any one could see he knew
what he was about; for he dived in straight after the child; and then,
that dratted steamer--you will excuse me, sir, but one's feelings are
strong--what must it do but back to pick up the child; and the poor
fellow, he must have struck his head against it, for he went down
again. Oh, yes, the child was all right, and the young gentleman would
have been all right too, but for that nasty blow; it stunned him, you
see."

Yes, it had stunned him; the young ill-spent life was over. Did he
call upon his God for succor as he went down into his watery grave?
Who knows what cry went up to heaven? The old epitaph that was
engraved on the tomb of a notorious ill-liver speaks quaintly of hope
in such cases,

"Betwixt the saddle and the ground
He mercy sought and mercy found."

and Raby quoted them softly to Crystal as she wept over the fate of
her unhappy lover.

"His last act was to try and save another; God only knows how far this
would go to redeem a faulty past--God only knows. Do not cry so
bitterly, darling. Let us trust him to the All Merciful; and, as the
good bishop said to the mother of Saint Augustine, 'the child of so
many prayers can not be lost.'"

* * * * *

Erle Huntingdon had passed an anxious, uncomfortable day. Percy's
confession of his gambling debts had made him seriously uneasy. It was
in his power to help him this once, he had said, with unusual
sternness, but he would soon be a married man, and then Percy must
look to himself; and Percy, nettled at his tone, had answered somewhat
shortly, and in spite of Erle's generosity they had not parted
friends.

But this was not all. After luncheon Mr. Huntingdon had called Erle
into his study, and had shown him a letter that he had just received
from some anonymous correspondent. Some unknown friend and well-wisher
had thought it advisable to warn Mr. Huntingdon of his grandson's
r