dship to me in your waiting longer now. You are
quite right in saying I have a sudden reason; this time last night I had
no special thought of hurrying on Charlotte's marriage. Her uncle
proposed it; I considered his reasoning good--so good, that I gave
Charlotte permission this morning to fix with you the time for the
wedding. But even then delay would have troubled me but little; now it
does; now even these four short months trouble me sorely."

"Why?" asked Hinton.

"Why? You mentioned my health, and observed that I looked ill; I said I
would come to that presently. I am ill; I look very ill. I have seen
physicians. To-day I went to see Sir George Anderson; he told me,
without any preamble, the truth. My dear fellow, I want you to be my
child's protector in a time of trouble, for I am a dying man."

Hinton had never come face to face with death in his life before. He
started forward now and clasped his hands.

"Dying!" he repeated, in a tone of unbelief and consternation.

"Yes; you don't see it, for I am going about. I shall go about much as
usual to the very last. Your idea of dying men is that they stay in bed
and get weak, and have a living death long before the last great mercy
comes. That will not be my case. I shall be as you see me now to the
very last moment; then some day, or perhaps some night, you will come
into this room, or into another room, it does not a bit matter where,
and find me dead."

"And must this come soon?" repeated Hinton.

"It may not come for some months; it may stay away for a year; but again
it may come to-night or to-morrow."

"Good God!" repeated Hinton.

"Yes, Mr. Hinton, you are right, in the contemplation of such a solemn
and terrible event, to mention the name of your Creator. He is a good
God, but His very goodness makes Him terrible. He is a God who will see
justice done; who will by no means cleanse the guilty. I am going into
His presence--a sinful old man. Well, I bow to His decree. But enough of
this; you see my reasons for wishing for an early marriage for my
child."

"Mr. Harman, I am deeply, deeply pained and shocked. May I know the
nature of your malady?"

"It is unnecessary to discuss it, and does no good; suffice it to know
that I carry a disease within me which by its very nature must end both
soon and suddenly; also that there is no cure for the disease."

"Are you telling me all this as a secret?"

"As a most solemn and sacred secret. My brother sus