was an instant of doubt, of struggle in his thoughts. His features were wrought upon by the intensity of emotion, and something of a mist passed across his gaze.

Oh, had his heart turned to that far-away time when a father's love was kindled within it, when all that was happy and hopeful lay before him? Could he pass over a darker interim? Could he, at last, forget-forgive?

Suddenly, with an impulse like a flash, with the rapid movement with which we crush away some object we would look upon no more, he tightened his grasp almost fiercely on one parchment roll. It was that tied with black. The next instant it was thrust into my hands. His eyes gleamed. They had fixed themselves on a bright fire burning just opposite to him in a large old-fashioned grate.

"Take it!" he said to me. "Throw it there!" and his glance showed too plainly where he meant. "Quick! quick, girl!-let me see it in the flames !"

I paused tremblingly. I looked around as for some mode of escape.

"Do you hear?" he repeated wildly. "Have you not promised? Do you dare to disobey?"

That voice was enough. Whatever it claimed of me, I must fulfil. I was pledged, as he said. I sprang forward a step or two, then stopped.

"Oh! uncle!" I exclaimed.

"Burn!-burn!" he broke in, in a sort of agony, and at the words fear fell upon me for what his

emotion might evoke. Like one driven to action by an irresistible force, I reached the fireplace; my grasp on the packet relaxed; the next instant it was in the middle of the blaze.

I stood motionless gazing on it, as the red flames curled around the tightened roll, just scorching it at first, blackening it later, and finally leaving nothing but a mass of light filmy substance, ready to be wafted away with the next current of air.

Then I turned to the bed. Uncle's attention had been as strained to watchfulness as my own; but when the conflagration was accomplished, the destruction of the paper complete, he sank back with a groan. I was at his side eagerly. A swift change had passed into his face.

"Call your mother," he murmured. "Call her, Ellen; I am dying!"

The tone, the look were enough. The truth of his words was written visibly before me. There was not a second to be lost, and the courage of despair came to me. Death breaks down all barriers. I was afraid no longer. I saw the bowed head of a brokenhearted man, of him who awaited one word of hope in hiding like a criminal. He seemed to be gazing at me imploringly, reproachfully. I could refrain no longer.

Oh, uncle! see him! see him!" I cried, and fell almost on my knees beside him. "See your son! forgive him before it is too late!"

He made a motion as of denial.

"Oh, don't refuse it!" I besought. "Don't, don't turn away! What is the earth any longer? What is worth anything but peace, pardon? Think of our Saviour's love, His pitiful love, His dying forgiveness."

I had caught his clasp in mine. The tears were raining from my eyes, and they fell in large drops upon his hand. He seemed to give a slight pressure with it at the moment. A cry of thankfulness rose to my lips, and I darted from the bedside.

Assent had been granted at last-I would interpret it as nothing else. I might still be in time, and rushing from the room, I opened a door opposite. Its occupant was standing up, watching, waiting breathlessly for some such summons. I had no need for a word. He obeyed the quick call of my look. It told all-of death, of hope.

Another instant, and the son was by his father's side. But I fell back with a shiver. Something had entered the chamber even in that second of absence. A cold, still presence filled it now; it gave place to none, it would yield to no right, no entreaty of the most anguished heart.

Frederick Merlin stood at last near the parent he had grieved. But no gaze was turned on him, no hand was outstretched to him. The meeting he had pictured so often, the pardon which was to be granted to his penitent appeals partook of a deathly silence.

Nothing might break it. It was icy, unutterable. With a sharp lamentable cry, he flung himself on his father's breast.

"Oh! one word, one look!" he implored. "Oh, do not die, father, till you have forgiven me !"

But never in this world was his woe to be healed. Never was he to know what he had pined and prayed for during long lingering years of remorse. He must look away from earth, if he would gain forgiveness now. There was but One whose loving face would not be hidden from him in his despair. Tears were shed in vain upon the white unconscious face of the dead. He must go with them to Him who "liveth and is alive for evermore," to the Saviour whose heart is always open, who never turns away.

CHAPTER XX.

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

"The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air."

LONGFELLOW.

SOMETHING may come to us when hope has left, when distrust of our wishes, doubt of our own plans have led us not to despair-but to patient reliance on the Higher Power which giveth not for time alone, but for eternity.

The shock caused to my mother by the news of Uncle George's death was followed by deep, sorrowful sympathy for another, for his unhappy son. She blamed herself that she had not sooner attempted a reconciliation between him and his father; that she had forced him to risk it on his own account, and thus lose every chance of a successful issue. Yet no one could have foreseen what ensued. At the very time when she was doing all that she could in sending me on this ill-fated visit to the Manor-House,