“Who says Richard Hare’s come home, Wilson?”

The question—­the weak, scarcely audible question—­had come from the dying boy.  Wilson threw up her hands, and made a bound to the bed.  “The like of that!” she uttered, aside to Mrs. Vine.  “One never knows when to take these sick ones.  Master William, you hold your tongue and drop to sleep again.  Your papa will be home soon from Lynneborough; and if you talk and get tired, he’ll say it’s my fault.  Come shut your eyes.  Will you have a bit more jelly?”

William, making no reply to the offer of jelly, buried his face again on the pillow.  But he was grievously restless; the nearly worn-out spirit was ebbing and flowing.

Mr. Carlyle was at Lynneborough.  He always had much business there at assize time and the Nisi Prius Court; but the previous day he had not gone himself, Mr. Dill had been dispatched to represent him.

Between seven and eight he returned home, and came into William’s chamber.  The boy brightened up at the well-known presence.

“Papa!”

Mr. Carlyle sat down on the bed and kissed him.  The passing beams of the sun, slanting from the horizon, shone into the room, and Mr. Carlyle could view well the dying face.  The gray hue of death was certainly on it.

“Is he worse?” he exclaimed hastily, to Madame Vine, who was jacketed, and capped, and spectacled, and tied up round the throat, and otherwise disguised, in her universal fashion.

“He appears worse this evening, sir—­more weak.”

“Papa,” panted William, “is the trial over?”

“What trial, my boy?”

“Sir Francis Levison’s.”

“It was over yesterday.  Never trouble your head about him, my brave boy, he is not worth it.”

“But I want to know.  Will they hang him?”

“He is sentenced to it.”

“Did he kill Hallijohn?”

“Yes.  Who has been talking to him upon the subject?” Mr. Carlyle continued to Madame Vine, with marked displeasure in his tone.

“Wilson mentioned it, sir,” was the low answer.

“Oh, papa!  What will he do?  Will Jesus forgive him?”

“We must hope it.”

“Do you hope it, papa?”

“Yes.  I wish that all the world may be forgiven, William, whatever may have been their sins.  My child, how restless you seem!”

“I can’t keep in one place; the bed gets wrong.  Pull me up on the pillow, will you Madame Vine?”

Mr. Carlyle gently lifted the boy himself.

“Madame Vine is an untiring nurse to you, William,” he observed, gratefully casting a glance toward her in the distance, where she had retreated, and was shaded by the window curtain.

William made no reply; he seemed to be trying to recall something.  “I forget!  I forget!”

“Forget what?” asked Mr. Carlyle.

“It was something I wanted to ask you, or to tell you.  Isn’t Lucy come home?”