hich made him more exacting and more intolerant, you would say?"

"Possibly it did. I remember he rated me rather sharply for not being
contented with a very humble condition in life, though I assured him I
felt no impatience at my lowly state, and was quite satisfied to wait
till better should befall me. He called me a casuist for saying this,
and hinted that all churchmen had the leaven of the Jesuit in them; but
he got out of this after a while, and promised to write a letter in my
behalf."

"And which he told me you would find sealed and addressed on this table
here. Here it is."

"How kind of him to remember me through all his suffering!"

"He said something about it being the only reparation he could make you;
but his voice was not very clear or distinct, and I could n't be sure I
caught his words correctly."

"Reparation! he owed me none."

"Well, well, it is possible I may have mistaken him. One thing is plain
enough; you cannot give me any clew to this seizure beyond the guess
that it may have been some tidings he received by post."

L'Estrange shook his head in silence, and after a moment said, "Is the
attack serious?"

"Highly so."

"And is his life in danger?"

"A few hours will decide that, but it may be days before we shall know
if his mind will recover. Craythorpe has been sent for from Dublin, and
we shall have his opinion this evening. I have no hesitation in saying
that mine is unfavorable."

"What a dreadful thing, and how fearfully sudden. I cannot conceive how
he could have bethought him of the letter for me at such a moment."

"He wrote it, he said, as you left him; you had not quitted the house
when he began. He said to me, 'I saw I was growing worse, I felt my
confusion was gaining on me, and a strange commixture of people and
events was occurring in my head; so I swept all my letters and papers
into a drawer and locked it, wrote the few lines I had promised,
and with my almost last effort of consciousness rang the bell for my
servant.'"

"But he was quite collected when he told you this?"

"Yes, it was in one of those lucid intervals when the mind shines out
clear and brilliant; but the effort cost him dearly: he has not rallied
from it since."

"Has he over-worked himself; is this the effect of an over-exerted
brain?"

"I 'd call it rather the result of some wounded sensibility; he appears
to have suffered some great reverse in ambition or in fortune. His tone,
so far as I