e do no wrong in life, Justin, for
which in this same life payment is not exacted. Ostermore has been
paying. I should have been content with that. After all, he is your
father in the flesh, and it was not for you to raise your hand against
him. 'Tis what you have felt, and I am glad you should have felt it, for
it proves your worthiness. Can you forgive me?"

"Nay, nay, father! Speak not of forgiveness."

"I have sore need of it."

"Ah, but not from me; not from me! What is there I should forgive? There
is a debt between us I had hoped to repay some day when you were grown
truly old. I had looked to tend you in your old age, to be the comfort
of it, and the support that you were to my infancy."

"It had been sweet, Justin," sighed Sir Richard, smiling upon his
adopted son, and putting forth an unsteady hand to stroke the white,
drawn face. "It had been sweet. It is sweet to hear that you so
proposed."

A shudder convulsed him. He sank back coughing, and there was froth
and blood on his lips. Reverently Justin wiped them, and signed for the
cordial to Bentley, who stood, numbed, in the background.

"It is the end," said Sir Richard feebly. "God has been good to me
beyond my deserts, and this is a crowning mercy. Consider, Justin, it
might have been the gibbet and a crowd--instead of this snug bed, and
you and Bentley here--just two good friends."

Bentley, losing all self-control at this mention of himself, sank
weeping to his knees. Sir Richard put out a hand, and touched his head.

"You will serve Mr. Caryll, Bentley. You'll find him a good master if
you are as good a servant to him as you have been to me."

Then suddenly he made the quick movement of one who bethinks himself of
something. He waved Bentley away.

"There is a case in the drawer yonder," he said, when the servant was
beyond earshot. "It contains papers that concern you--certificates of
your birth and of your mothers death. I brought them with me as proofs
of your identity, against the time when the hour of vengeance upon
Ostermore should strike. They twill serve no purpose now. Burn them.
They are best destroyed."

Mr. Caryll nodded understanding, and on Sir Richard's part there
followed another fight for breath, another attack of coughing, during
which Bentley instinctively approached again.

When the paroxysm was past, Sir Richard turned once more to Justin, who
was holding him in his arms, upright, to ease his breathing. "Be good to
Be