ending.

"You can come out, Martha," said the warden. "The gentleman's come to
see 'im."

As the old woman disappeared, courtesying, he lingered to say, in a
whisper, "Do you know him, sir?"

"Yes," said Charles, looking fixedly at the figure on the bed. "I
remember him. I knew him years ago, in his better days. I dare say he
will have something to tell me."

"If it should be anything as requires a witness," continued the
man--"he's said a deal already, and it's all down in proper form--but if
there's anything more----"

"I will let you know," said Charles, looking towards the door, and the
warden took the hint and went out of it, closing it quietly.

Charles crossed the little room, and, sitting down in the crazy chair
beside the bed, laid his hand gently on the listless hand lying palm
upward on the rough gray counterpane.

"Raymond," he said; "it is I, Danvers."

The hand trembled a little, and made a faint attempt to clasp his.
Charles took the cold, lifeless hand, and held it in his strong gentle
grasp.

"It is Danvers," he said again.

The sick man turned his head slowly on the pillow, and looked fixedly at
him. Death's own color, which imitation can never imitate, nor ignorance
mistake, was stamped upon that rigid face.

"I'm done for," he said with a faint smile, which touched the lips but
did not reach the solemn far-reaching eyes.

Charles could not speak.

"You said I should turn up tails once too often," continued Raymond,
with slow halting utterance, "and I've done it. I knew it was all up
when I pitched over that d----d wall onto the stones. I felt I'd killed
myself."

"How did they get you?" said Charles.

"I don't know," replied Raymond, closing his eyes wearily, as if the
subject had ceased to interest him. "I think I tried to creep along
under the wall towards the place where it is broken down, when I fancy
some one came over long after the others and knocked me on the head."

Charles reflected with sudden wrath that Brooks, no doubt, had been the
man, and how much worse than useless his manoeuvre with the stick had
been.

"I did my best," he said, humbly.

"Yes," replied the other; "and I would not have forgotten it, either,
if--if there had been any time to remember it in; but there won't be.
I've owned up," he continued, in a labored whisper. "Stephens has made a
full confession. You'll have it in all the papers to-morrow. And while I
was at it I piled on some more I never d