e. I believe your religion is true. I
cannot doubt it. It is real, for you are real. It is real for you,
but, alas! not real for me."

Amos was going to turn to another passage in his New Testament, but the
other waved his hand impatiently. "No more of that now," he said; "I
have other things just at present on my mind. You know that I am a
doomed man. The police are looking out for me; but I shall cheat them
yet. Death will have me first. Yes, I am a dying man.--Of course _she_
has not come with you. Perhaps you have not told her that you were
coming. Well, it's better she shouldn't come; there's fever about, and
I have dragged her down low enough already. This is no place for her.
But I shall not be here long to trouble any of you. Will you tell her
that I am sorry for my past treatment of her? and keep an eye on the
children, will you, as you have done? Oh, don't let them come to this!"
Here the unhappy man fairly broke down.

When he had again partially recovered, Amos begged him to keep himself
as quiet as he could, adding that all might yet be well, and that he
must now leave him, but would return again in a few hours.

Having sought the good Scripture reader, and ascertained from him that
the medical man gave no hopes of the unhappy man living more than a few
days, Amos at once confided to his host the sad story of his sister's
marriage and its consequences, and now asked his advice and help as to
how he could make the remaining time of his brother-in-law's life as
comfortable as circumstances would permit. Mr Harris at once threw
himself heartily into the matter, and before night the dying man had
been tenderly conveyed from his miserable quarters to the Scripture
reader's own dwelling, where everything was at once done that could
alleviate his sufferings and supply his wants.

That same evening Amos wrote to his sister in these brief words:
"Orlando is dying. A few days will end all." He purposely added no
words of persuasion, nor any account of his interview with her husband
and what he had done for his comfort; for he feared that any such
account from himself might just steel her heart against any appeal, and
make her rest satisfied with what another was doing for the man whom she
had vowed to love in sickness as well as in health. He knew that his
scrap of a letter must prove startling by its abruptness; but he had no
wish that it should be otherwise. These startling words might rouse h