ally doing so,
and with increasing ease each time. The blood began to run through his
veins again, the chest heaved, and the breath was drawn in long,
labouring gasps. At last the old man's eyes opened, and fixed themselves
upon Raymond's face with a long, bewildered stare.

They asked him no questions. They had no desire that he should speak.
His state was critical in the extreme. They had but come to minister to
his stricken body. To cope with a mind such as his was a task that
Raymond felt must be far beyond his own powers. He would have given much
to have had Father Paul at this bedside for one brief hour, the more so
as he saw the shrinking and terror creeping over the drawn, ashen face.
Did his guilty soul know itself to be standing on the verge of eternity?
and did the wretched man feel the horror of great darkness infolding him
already?

All at once he spoke, and his words were like a cry of terror.

"Alicia! Alicia! how comest thou here?"

Raymond, to whom the words were plainly addressed, knew not how to
answer them, or what they could mean; but the wild eyes were still fixed
upon his face, and again the old man's excited words broke forth --
"Comest thou in this dread hour to claim thine own again? Alicia,
Alicia! I do repent of my robbery. I would fain restore all. It has been
a curse, and not a blessing; all has been against me -- all. I was a
happy man before I unlawfully wrested Basildene from thee. Since I have
done that deed naught has prospered with me; and here I am left to die
alone, neglected by all, and thou alone -- thy spirit from the dead --
comes to taunt me in my last hour with my robbery and my sin. O forgive,
forgive! Thou art dead. Spirits cannot inherit this world's goods, else
would I restore all to thee. Tell me what I may do to make amends ere I
die? But look not at me with those great eyes of thine, lightened with
the fire of the Lord. I cannot bear it -- I cannot bear it! Tell me only
how I may make restoration ere I am taken hence to meet my doom!"

Raymond understood then. The old man mistook him for his mother, who
must have been about his own age when her wicked kinsman had ousted her
from her possessions. Had they not told him in the old home how wondrous
like to her he was growing? The clouded vision of the old man could see
nothing but the face of the youth bending over him, and to him it was
the face of an avenging angel. He clasped his hands together in an agony
of suppl