tle, and stands where he can no longer see her.

"Try to drink this," says Roger, holding the flask again to Gower's lips
and forcing a few drops between them. They are of some use, as presently
a slight, a very slight tinge of red comes into his cheek, and his eyes
show more animation.

"It is very good of you, old man," he whispers, faintly, looking up at
Roger. "I believe you are sorry for me, _after all_."

The "after all" is full of meaning.

"Why shouldn't I be sorry for you?" says Roger, huskily, his eyes full
of tears. "Don't talk like that."

"I know you think I behaved badly to you," goes on Stephen, with painful
slowness. "And perhaps I did."

"As to that," interrupted Roger, quickly, "we're quits there, you know;
nothing need be said about that. Why can't we forget it? Come, Stephen,
forget it all, and be friends again."

"With all my heart," says Gower, and his eyes grow glad, and a smile of
real happiness illumines his features for a moment.

"Now, don't talk any more; don't, there's a good fellow," says Roger,
with deep entreaty.

"There is--one thing--I must say," whispers Gower, "while I have time.
Tell _her_--that I have behaved like a coward to her, and that I give
her back her promise. Tell her she may marry whom she pleases." He gasps
for breath, and then, pressing Roger's hand with his own uninjured one,
says, with a last effort, "And that will be _you_, I hope."

The struggle to say this proves too much for his exhausted strength; his
head drops back again upon Roger's arm, and, for the third time, he
falls into a dead faint.

The tears are running down Roger's cheeks by this time, and he is gazing
with ever-increasing terror at the deathly face below him, when looking
up to address some remark to Dulce, he finds she is nowhere to be seen.
Even as he looks round for her in consternation, he sees two or three
men hurrying toward him, and two others following more slowly with
something that looks like a shutter or door between them. Dulce, while
he was listening to Stephen's last heavily-uttered words, had hurried
away, and, climbing over all that came in her way, had descended into a
little valley not far from the scene of the accident, where at a
farmhouse she had told her tale, and pressed into her service the men
now coming quickly toward Roger.

With their help the wounded man (still happily unconscious) is carried
to the farm-house, where he remains until, the carriage from the C