t he must
be dead, he lay so still.

But he had not yet passed away. He revived under the influence of
stimulants. He tried to speak, and muttered indistinctly from time to
time words of which we could sometimes make no sense. We understood,
however, that he had been tried by an Italian tribunal, and had been
found guilty; but with such extenuating circumstances that his sentence
was commuted to imprisonment, during, we thought we made out, two years.
But we could not understand what he said about his wife, though we
gathered that she was still alive, from something he whispered to the
doctor of there being provision made for her in his will.

He lay in a doze for something more than an hour after he had told his
tale, and then he woke up quite suddenly, as he had done when we had
first entered the room. He looked round uneasily in all directions,
until his eye fell on the looking-glass.

"I want it," he said, hastily; but I noticed that he did not shudder now,
as it was brought near. When old Masey approached, holding it in his
hand, and crying like a child, Dr. Garden came forward and stood between
him and his master, taking the hand of poor Strange in his.

"Is this wise?" he asked. "Is it good, do you think, to revive this
misery of your life now, when it is so near its close? The chastisement
of your crime," he added, solemnly, "has been a terrible one. Let us
hope in God's mercy that your punishment is over."

The dying man raised himself with a last great effort, and looked up at
the doctor with such an expression on his face as none of us had seen on
any face, before.

"I do hope so," he said, faintly, "but you must let me have my way in
this--for if, now, when I look, I see aright--once more--I shall then
hope yet more strongly--for I shall take it as a sign."

The doctor stood aside without another word, when he heard the dying man
speak thus, and the old servant drew near, and, stooping over softly,
held the looking-glass before his master. Presently afterwards, we, who
stood around looking breathlessly at him, saw such a rapture upon his
face, as left no doubt upon our minds that the face which had haunted him
so long, had, in his last hour, disappeared.

NO. 4 BRANCH LINE
THE TRAVELLING POST-OFFICE

Many years ago, and before this Line was so much as projected, I was
engaged as a clerk in a Travelling Post-office running along the Line of
railway from London to a town in the Midl