o the evil which he
has done."

She stole softly into the sick room. I followed her on tip-toe, and
stood near the door behind the screen which shut off the draught from
the patient. Sebastian stretched his arms out to her. "Ah, Maisie,
my child," he cried, addressing her by the name she had borne in her
childhood--both were her own--"don't leave me any more! Stay with me
always, Maisie! I can't get on without you."

"But you hated once to see me!"

"Because I have so wronged you."

"And now? Will you do nothing to repair the wrong?"

"My child, I can never undo that wrong. It is irreparable, for the
past can never be recalled; but I will try my best to minimise it. Call
Cumberledge in. I am quite sensible now, quite conscious. You will be
my witness, Cumberledge, that my pulse is normal and that my brain is
clear. I will confess it all. Maisie, your constancy and your firmness
have conquered me. And your devotion to your father. If only I had had
a daughter like you, my girl, one whom I could have loved and trusted,
I might have been a better man. I might even have done better work for
science--though on that side, at least, I have little with which to
reproach myself."

Hilda bent over him. "Hubert and I are here," she said, slowly, in
a strangely calm voice; "but that is not enough. I want a public, an
attested, confession. It must be given before witnesses, and signed and
sworn to. Somebody might throw doubt upon my word and Hubert's."

Sebastian shrank back. "Given before witnesses, and signed and sworn to!
Maisie, is this humiliation necessary; do you exact it?"

Hilda was inexorable. "You know yourself how you are situated. You have
only a day or two to live," she said, in an impressive voice. "You must
do it at once, or never. You have postponed it all your life. Now, at
this last moment, you must make up for it. Will you die with an act of
injustice unconfessed on your conscience?"

He paused and struggled. "I could--if it were not for you," he answered.

"Then do it for me," Hilda cried. "Do it for me! I ask it of you not
as a favour, but as a right. I DEMAND it!" She stood, white, stern,
inexorable, by his couch, and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

He paused once more. Then he murmured feebly, in a querulous tone, "What
witnesses? Whom do you wish to be present?"

Hilda spoke clearly and distinctly. She had thought it all out with
herself beforehand. "Such witnesses as will carry absolute conv