“Have the goodness, sir, to deliver your message, and then instantly leave the office.”

“Old Tho-o-o-rney,” was the hiccoughed reply, “has smoked the—­the plot.  Young Thorney’s done for.  Ma-a-aried in a false name; tra-ansportation—­of course.”

“What gibberish is this about old Thorney and young Thorney?  Do you not come from Major Stewart?”

“Ye-e-es, that’s right; the route’s arrived for the old trump; wishes to—­to see you”

“Major Stewart dying!  Why, you are a more disgraceful scamp than I believed you to be.  Send this fellow away,” I added to a clerk who answered my summons.  I then hastened off, and was speedily rattling over the stones towards Baker Street, Portman Square, where Major Stewart resided.  As I left the office I heard Martin beg the clerk to lead him to the pump previous to sending him off—­no doubt for the purpose of sobering himself somewhat previous to reappearing before the major, whose motives for hiring or retaining such a fellow in his modest establishment I could not understand.

“You were expected more than an hour ago,” said Dr. Hampton, who was just leaving the house.  “The major is now, I fear, incapable of business.”

There was no time for explanation, and I hastily entered the sick-chamber.  Major Stewart, though rapidly sinking, recognized me; and in obedience to a gesture from her master the aged, weeping house-keeper left the room.  The major’s daughter, Rosamond Stewart, had been absent with her aunt, her father’s maiden sister, on a visit, I understood, to some friends in Scotland, and had not, I concluded, been made acquainted with the major’s illness, which had only assumed a dangerous character a few days previously.  The old soldier was dying calmly and painlessly—­rather from exhaustion of strength, a general failure of the powers of life, than from any especial disease.  A slight flush tinged the mortal pallor of his face as I entered, and the eyes emitted a slightly-reproachful expression.

“It is not more, my dear sir,” I replied softly but eagerly to his look, “than a quarter of an hour ago that I received your message.”

I do not know whether he comprehended or even distinctly heard what I said, for his feeble but extremely anxious glance was directed whilst I spoke to a large oil-portrait of Rosamond Stewart, suspended over the mantel-piece.  The young lady was a splendid, dark-eyed beauty, and of course the pride and darling of her father.  Presently wrenching, as it were, his eyes from the picture, he looked in my face with great earnestness, and bending my ear close to his lips, I heard him feebly and brokenly say, “A question to ask you, that’s all; read—­read!” His hand motioned towards a letter which lay open on the bed; I ran it over, and the major’s anxiety was at once explained.  Rosamond Stewart had, I found, been a short time previously married in Scotland to Henry Thorneycroft, the son of the wealthy East India