On a sofa, drawn at right angles with the fire, lay Hamish Channing; his bright head raised high, a crimson coverlid of eider down thrown over his feet. In the last day or two he had grown perceptibly worse; that is, weaker. The most sanguine amidst his friends, medical or others, could not say there was hope now. But, as long as he could keep up, Hamish would not give in to his illness: he rose in the morning and made a pretence of going about the house; and when he was tired, lay on the sofa that had been put into his writing-room. It was the room he felt most at home in, and he seemed to cling to it.

On the other side the hearth, bending forward in his chair, staring at Hamish with sad eyes, and pulling at his whiskers in grievous gloom, sat Roland Yorke. Roland had abandoned his home-copying for the past two days, and spent all his spare time with Hamish. Mrs. Jones, snatching a moment to go and visit Mr. Channing for old association\'s sake, had been very much struck with what she saw in him, and carried home the news that he was certainly dying. Roland, believing Mrs. J. to be as correct in judgment as she was tart in speech, had been looking out for death from that moment. Previously he was given to waver; one moment in despair; the next, up in the skies with exultation and thinking recovery had set in. The wind could not be more variable than Roland.

It was the twilight hour of the winter\'s day. The room was not lighted yet, but the blaze from the fire played on Hamish\'s face as he lay. There was a change in it tonight, and it told upon Roland: for it looked like the shadow of death. Things seemed to have been rather at sixes and sevens in the office that afternoon: Mr. Brown was absent, Hurst had gone home for Christmas, Bede Greatorex did not show himself, and there was nobody to tell Roland what work to be about. Of course it presented to that gentleman\'s mind a most valuable opportunity for enjoying a spell of recreation, and he took French leave to abandon it to itself and little Jenner. Rushing home in the first place, to see what might be doing there--for it was the day that Miss Rye had been captured by Butterby. Roland had his run for his pains. There was nothing doing, and his curiosity and good nature alike suffered. Miss Rye was a prisoner still; she, and Mrs. Jones, and the policeman left in charge, being shut up in the parlour together. "It\'s an awful shame of old Butterby!" cried Roland to himself, as he sped along to Hamish\'s. There he took up his station in his favourite chair, and watched the face that was fading so rapidly away. With an etherealized look in it that spoke of Heaven, with a placid calm that seemed to partake of the fast approaching rest; with a sweet smile that told of altogether inward peace, there the face lay; and Roland thought he had never seen one on earth so like an angel\'s.

Hamish had dropped into a doze; as he often did, at the close of day, when darkness is silently spreading over the light. Nelly Channing, who had learnt--by that subtle warning that sometimes steals, we know not how, over the instinct of little ones about to be made orphans--that some great and sad change was looming in the air, sat on a stool on the hearthrug as sedately as any old woman. Nelly\'s boisterous ways and gleeful laugh had left her for awhile: example perhaps taught her to be still, and she largely profited by it.

On her lap lay a story book: papa had bought it for her yesterday that is, had given the money to Miss Nelly and nurse when they went out, and wrote down the title of the book they were to buy, and the shop they might get it at, with his own trembling fingers, out of which the strength had nearly gone. It was one of those exquisite story books that ought to be in all children\'s hands, Mrs. Sherwood\'s; belonging of course to a past day, but nothing has since been written like them.

With every leaf that she silently turned, Nelly looked to see that it did not wake the invalid. When she grew tired, and her face was roasted to a red heat, she went to Roland, resting the open book upon his knee. He lifted her up.

"It is such a pretty book, Roland."

"All right. Don\'t you make a noise, Nelly."

"Margaret went to heaven in the book: she was buried under the great yew tree," whispered Kelly. "Papa\'s going there."

Roland caught the little head to him, and bent his face on the golden hair. He knew that what she said was true: but it was a shock nevertheless to have it repeated openly to him even by this young child.

"Papa talks to me about it. It will be so beautiful; he will never be tired there, or have any sorrow or pain. Oh, Roland; I wish I was going with him!"

Her eyes were filled with tears as she looked up; Roland\'s were filled in sympathy. He had cried like a schoolboy more than once of late. All on a sudden, happening to glance across, he saw Hamish looking on with a smile.

"You be off, Nelly," said arbitrary Roland, carrying her to the door and shutting it upon her and her book. "I\'m sure your tea must be ready in the nursery."

"Don\'t grieve, Roland," said Hamish, when he sat down again.

"I wish you could get well," returned Roland, seeing the fire through a mist.

"And I have nearly ceased to wish it, Roland. It\'s all for the best."

"Ceased to wish it! How\'s that?"

"Through God\'s mercy, I think."

The words silenced Roland. When anything of this kind was mentioned it turned him into a child, so far as his feelings went; simple as Miss Nelly, was he, and a vast deal more humble-minded.

"Things are being cleared for me so wonderfully, Roland. But for leaving some who are dear to me, the pain would be over."

"I wish I could come across that fiend who wrote the reviews!" was Roland\'s muttered answer to this. "I wish I could!"

"What?" said Hamish, not catching the words.

"I will say it, then; I don\'t care," cried impetuous Roland--for no one had ever spoken before Hamish of what was supposed to have caused him the cruel pain. Roland blurted it all out now in his explosive fashion; his own long-suppressed wrath, and what he held in store for the anonymous reviewer, when he should have the good fortune to come across him.

A minute\'s silence when he ceased, a wild hectic spreading itself into the hollow cheeks--that it should so stir him even yet! Hamish held out his hand, and Roland came across to take it. The good sweet eyes looked into his.

"If ever you do \'come across\' him, Roland, say that I forgive," came the low, earnest whisper. "I did think it cruel at the time; well nigh too hard to bear; but, like most other crosses, I seem to see now that it came to me direct from heaven."

"That is good, Hamish! Come!"

"We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom," whispered Hamish, looking up at him with a yearning smile. "You have in all probability a long life before you, Roland: but the time may come when you will realize the truth of those words."

Roland swallowed down a lump in his throat as he turned to the fire again. Hamish resumed, changing his tone for one almost of gaiety.

"I have had good news today. Our friend the publisher called; and what do you think he told me, Roland? That my book was finding its way at last."

"Of course it will. Everybody always thought it must. If you could but have put off for a time your bother over the reviews, Hamish!" Roland added piteously.

"Ay. He says that in three months\' time from this, the book will be in every one\'s hands. In the satisfaction of the news, I sat down and ate some luncheon with him and Ellen."

"Don\'t you think the news might be enough to cure you?" asked sanguine Roland.

Hamish shook his head. "If I were able to feel joy now as I felt the sorrow, it might perhaps go a little way towards it. But that is over, Roland. The capability of feeling either in any degree was crushed out of me."

Roland rubbed up his hair. If he had but that enemy of his under his hand, and a spacious arena that admitted of pitching-in!

"And now for some more good news, Roland. You must know how I have been troubled at the thought of leaving Ellen and the child unprovided for--"

"I say, don\'t you! Don\'t you trouble, Hamish," came the impulsive interruption. "I\'ll work for them. I\'ll do my very best for them, as well as for Annabel."

"It won\'t be needed, dear old friend," and Hamish\'s face, with its bright, grateful smile, almost looked like the sunny one of old. "Ellen\'s father, Mr. Huntley, is regaining the wealth he feared he had lost. As an earnest of it, he has sent Ellen two hundred pounds. It was paid her today."

"Oh, now, isn\'t that good, Hamish!"

"Very good!" answered Hamish, reverently and softly, as certain words ran through his mind: "So great is His mercy towards them that trust in Him."

"And so, Roland, all things are working round pleasantly that I may die in peace."

Mrs. Channing, coming in with her things on, for she had been out on some necessary business, interrupted the conversation. She mentioned to Roland that she had seen Gerald drive up to his wife\'s rooms, and that he had promised to come round.

"Why I thought he was at Sunny Mead with Dick!"

"He told me he had just returned from it," said Mrs. Channing.

"I say, Hamish, who knows but he may have brought me up a message!" cried Roland.

Hamish smiled. Roland had disclosed the fact in family conclave, of his having applied for the place of bailiff to Sir Vincent; Annabel being present. He had recited, so far as he could remember them, the very words of the letter, over which Hamish had laughed himself into a coughing-fit.

"To be sure," answered Hamish, with a touch of his old jesting spirit. "Gerald may have brought up your appointment, Roland."

That was quite enough. "I\'ll go and ask him," said Roland eagerly. "Anyway he may be able to tell me how Dick received it."

Away went Roland, on the spur of the moment. It was a clear, cold evening, the air sharp and frosty; and Roland ran all the way to Mrs. Gerald Yorke\'s.

That lady was not in tears this evening; but her mood was a gloomy one, her face fractious. The tea was on the table, and she was cutting thick bread-and-butter for the three little girls sitting so quietly round it, before their cups of milk-and-water. Gerald had gone out again; she did not know where, whether temporarily, or to his chambers for the night, or anything about him.

"I think something must have gone wrong at Sunny Mead," observed Winny. "When I asked what brought him back so soon, he only swore. Perhaps Sir Vince............