wink at.

But he would not for the world have deserted his friend. He drew his
stool close to the wall, wrapped himself round in all the clothes he
could muster, and, shivering with cold, kept watch through the long
winter night.

"I am near you," he telegraphed. "I will watch with you till morning."

From time to time Sigismund rapped faint messages, and Valerian replied
with comfort and sympathy. Once he thought to himself, "My friend is
better; there is more power in his hand." And indeed he trembled,
fearing that the sharp, emphatic raps must certainly attract notice and
put an end to their communion.

"Tell my love that the accusation was false--false!" the word was
vehemently repeated. "Tell her I died broken-hearted, loving her to the
end."

"I will tell her all when I am free," said poor Valerian, wondering with
a sigh when his unjust imprisonment would end. "Do you suffer much?" he
asked.

There was a brief interval. Sigismund hesitated to tell a falsehood in
his last extremity.

"It will soon be over. Do not be troubled for me," he replied. And
after that there was a long, long silence.

Poor fellow! he died hard; and I wished that those comfortable English
people could have been dragged from their warm beds and brought into the
cold dreary cell where their victim lay, fighting for breath, suffering
cruelly both in mind and body. Valerian, listening in sad suspense,
heard one more faint word rapped by the dying man.

"Farewell!"

"God be with you!" he replied, unable to check the tears which rained
down as he thought of the life so sadly ended, and of his own
bereavement.

He heard no more. Sigismund's strength failed him, and I, to whom the
darkness made no difference, watched him through the last dread struggle;
there was no one to raise him, or hold him, no one to comfort him. Alone
in the cold and darkness of that first morning of the year 1887, he died.

Valerian did not hear through the wall his last faint gasping cry, but I
heard it, and its exceeding bitterness would have made mortals weep.

"Gertrude!" he sobbed. "Gertrude!"

And with that his head sank on his breast, and the life, which but for me
might have been so happy and prosperous, was ended.

* * * * *

Prompted by curiosity, I instantly returned to Muddleton and sought out
Gertrude Morley. I stole into her room. She lay asleep, but her dreams
were troubled, and her face, once so fresh and bright, was worn w