cell door. The other, who was bound not to leave him, very
delicately and considerately affected to be looking out of window the
moment I was shown in.

He was sitting on the side of his bed, with his head drooping and his
hands hanging listlessly over his knees when I first caught sight of
him. At the sound of my approach he started to his feet, and, without
speaking a word, flung both his arms round my neck.

My heart swelled up.

"Tell me it's not true, sir! For God's sake, tell me it's not true!" was
all I could say to him.

He never answered--oh me! he never answered, and he turned away his
face.

There was one dreadful moment of silence. He still held his arms round
my neck, and on a sudden he put his lips close to my ear.

"Did you get your money out?" he whispered. "Were you in time on
Saturday afternoon?"

I broke free from him in the astonishment of hearing those words.

"What!" I cried out loud, forgetting the third person at the window.
"That man who brought the message--"

"Hush!" he said, putting his hand on my lips. "There was no better man
to be found, after the officers had taken me--I know no more about
him than you do--I paid him well as a chance messenger, and risked his
cheating me of his errand."

"_You_ sent him, then!"

"I sent him."

My story is over, gentlemen. There is no need for me to tell you that
Mr. Fauntleroy was found guilty, and that he died by the hangman's hand.
It was in my power to soothe his last moments in this world by taking on
myself the arrangement of some of his private affairs, which, while they
remained unsettled, weighed heavily on his mind. They had no connection
with the crimes he had committed, so I could do him the last little
service he was ever to accept at my hands with a clear conscience.

I say nothing in defense of his character--nothing in palliation of the
offense for which he suffered. But I cannot forget that in the time of
his most fearful extremity, when the strong arm of the law had already
seized him, he thought of the young man whose humble fortunes he had
helped to build; whose heartfelt gratitude he had fairly won; whose
simple faith he was resolved never to betray. I leave it to greater
intellects than mine to reconcile the anomaly of his reckless falsehood
toward others and his steadfast truth toward me. It is as certain as
that we sit here that one of Fauntleroy's last efforts in this world was
the effort he made to preserve me fro