"Brazey, why have you haunted me thus, and done me this great wrong?"

"I cannot tell. When I thought how you took her from me, it made me
crazy when I thought about it. I wanted to take her from you, but I
wouldn't have dared to do that if you hadn't struck me. I wanted
revenge then."

"What have you done with her?"

"She is gone, I haven't seen her since the day after I seized her,
when a band of Indians took her from me, and went up north with her.
They have got her yet, I know, for I have kept watch over her, and she
is safe, but is a close prisoner." This he said with great difficulty.

"Brazey, you are dying. I forgive you. But does your heart tell you
you are at peace with Him whom you have offended so grievously?"

"It's too late to talk of that now. It might have done years ago, when
I was an honest man like yourself, and before I became a vagabond,
bent on injuring one who had never really injured me."

"It is never too late for God to forgive--"

"Too late--too late, I tell you! _There!_" He rose upon his elbow,
his eyes burning with insane light and his hand extended. "I see
her--she is coming, her white robes floating on the air. Oh, God,
forgive me that I did her the great wrong! But, she smiles upon
me--she forgives me! I thank thee, angel of good----"

He sunk slowly backward, and Harvey Richter eased the head softly down
upon the turf. Brazey Davis was no more.

CHAPTER X.

CONCLUSION.

Heart leaps to heart--the sacred flood
That warms us is the same;
That good old man--his honest blood
Alike we frankly claim.--SPRAGUE.

The missionary gazed sadly upon the inanimate form before him. He saw
the playmate of his childhood stricken down in death by his own hand,
which never should have taken human life, and although the act was
justifiable under the circumstances, the good man could but mourn the
painful necessity that occasioned it. The story, although possessing
tragic interest, was a brief one. Brazey Davis, as he had always been
termed, was a few years older than himself, and a native of the same
neighborhood. He was known in childhood as one possessing a vindictive
spirit that could never forgive an injury--as a person who would not
hesitate at any means to obtain revenge. It so happened that he became
desperately enamored of the beautiful Cora Brandon, but becoming
aware, at length, that she was the betrothed of Harvey Braisted, the
young missionary in embryo,