In a handsome of a handsome house in Birmingham, an old man lay dying. For most of his life he had been engaged in a large business—had achieved local position, had accumulated moderate wealth. But neither wealth nor position can ensure peace to a death-bed; and the old man lay on his, over the past.  
The season was that of mid-winter. Not the winter following the intended removal of Mr. Halliburton from London, as spoken of in the last chapter, but the winter preceding it—for it is necessary to go back a little. A hard, sharp, white day in January: and the fire was piled high in the sick room, and the large of snow piled themselves outside on the window frames and beat against the glass. The room was fitted up with every comfort the most fastidious could desire; and yet, I say, nothing seemed to bring comfort to the invalid lying there. His hands were as in mortal agony; his eyes were watching the falling snow. The eyes saw it not: in reality they were cast back to where his mind was—the past.
 
What could be troubling him? Was it that loss, only two years ago, by which one-half of his had been ? Scarcely. A man dying—as he knew he was—would be unlikely to care about that now. Ample had remained to him, and he had neither son nor daughter to inherit. Hark! what is it that he is murmuring between his lips, to the accompaniment of his clenched hands?
 
"I see it all now; I see it all! While we are up with health and strength, we continue hard, selfish, in our wickedness. But when death comes, we awake to our error; and death has come to me, and I have to mine. Why did I turn him out like a dog? He had neither kith nor , and I sent him adrift on the world, to fight with it or to starve! He was the only child of my sister, and she was gone. She and I were of the same father and mother; we shared the same meals in childhood, the same home, the same play, the same hopes. She wrote to me when she was dying, as I am dying now: 'Richard, should my poor boy be left fatherless—for my husband's health seems to be failing—be his friend and protector for Helen's sake, and may Heaven bless you for it!' And I at the injunction when the boy offended me, and turned him out. Shall I have to answer for it?"
 
The last anxious doubt was uttered more audibly than the rest; it escaped from his lips with a . A woman who was over the fire started up.
 
"Did you call, sir?"
 
"No. Go out and leave me."
 
"But——"
 
"Go out and leave me," he repeated, with anger little fitted to his position. And the woman was speeding from the room, when he caught at the curtain and recalled her.
 
"Are they not come?"
 
"Not yet, sir. But, with this heavy fall, it's not to be wondered at. The highways must be almost impassable. With good roads they might have been here hours ago."
 
She went out. He lay back on his pillow: his eyes wide open, but wearing the same dreamy look. You may be wondering who he is; though you probably guess, for you have heard of him once before as Mr. Cooper, the uncle who discarded Edgar Halliburton.
 
I must give you a few words of . Richard Cooper was the of three children; the others were a brother and a sister: Richard, Alfred, and Helen. Alfred and Helen both married; Richard never did marry. It was somewhat singular that the brother and sister should both die, each leaving an ; and that the should find a home in the house of their Uncle Richard. Julia Cooper, the brother's orphan, was the first to come to it, a long time before Edgar Halliburton came. Helen had married the . William Halliburton, and she died at his rectory in Devonshire—sending that earnest prayer to her brother Richard which you have just heard him utter. A little while, and her husband, the rector, also died; and then it was that Edgar went up to his Uncle Richard's. Fortunate for these two orphan children, it appeared to be, that their uncle had not married and could give them a good home.
 
A good home he did give them. Julia left it first to become the wife of Anthony Dare, a in large practice in a distant city. She married him very soon after her cousin Edgar came to his uncle's. And it was after the marriage of Julia that Edgar was discarded and turned adrift. Years, many years, had gone by since then; and here lay Richard Cooper, stricken for death and of the harshness, which he had not of or sought to for all through those long years. Ah, my friends! may lie upon our consciences, however we may have to ignore it during our busy lives, be assured that it will find us out on our death-bed!
 
Richard Cooper lay back on his pillow, his eyes wide open with their inward . "Who knows but there would be time yet?" he suddenly murmured. And the thought appeared to rouse his mind and flush his cheek, and he lifted his hand and grasped the bell-rope, ringing it so loudly as to bring two servants to the room.
 
"Go up, one of you, to Lawyer Weston's," he uttered. "Bring him back with you. Tell him I want to alter my will, and that there may yet be time. Don't send—one of you go," he repeated in tones of agonising . "Bring him; bring him back with you!"
 
As the echo of his voice died away there came a loud summons at the street door, as of a hasty arrival. "Sir," cried one of the maids, "they're come at last! I thought I heard a carriage drawing up in the snow."
 
"Who's come?" he asked in some confusion of mind. "Weston?"
 
"Not him, sir; Mr. and Mrs. Dare," replied the servant as she hurried out.
 
A lady and gentleman were getting out of a coach at the door. A tall, very tall man, with handsome features, but an unpleasantly free expression. The lady was tall also, and fair, with an imperious look in her little turned-up nose. "Are we in time?" the latter asked of the servants.
 
"It's nearly as much as can be said, ma'am," was the answer. "But he has roused up in the last hour, and is growing excited. The doctors thought it might be so: that he'd not continue in the lethargy to the last."
 
They went on at once to the sick chamber. Every sense of the dying man appeared to be on the alert. His hands were holding back the curtain, his eyes were strained on the door. "Why have you been so long?" he cried in a voice of strength they were surprised to hear.
 
"Dear uncle," said Mrs. Dare, bending over the bed and clasping the feeble hands, "we started the very moment the letter came. But we could not get along—the roads are dreadfully heavy."
 
"Sir," whispered a servant in the invalid's ear, "are we to go now for Lawyer Weston?"
 
"No, there's no need," was the prompt answer. "Anthony Dare, you are a lawyer," continued Mr. Cooper; "you'll do what I want done as well as another. Will you do it?"
 
"Anything you please, sir," was Mr. Dare's reply.
 
"Sit down, then; Julia, sit down. You may be hungry and thirsty after your journey; but you must wait. Life's not out of you, as it is out of me. We'll get this matter over, that my mind may be so far at rest; and then you can eat and drink of the best that my house affords. I am in mortal pain, Anthony Dare."
 
Mrs. Dare was silently removing some of her outer wrappings, and whispering with the servant at the of the roomy chamber; but Mr. Dare, who had taken off his great-coat and hat in the hall, continued to stand by the sick bed.
 
"I am sorry to hear it, sir," he said, in reply to Mr. Cooper's concluding sentence. "Can the medical men afford you no relief?"
 
"It is pain of mind, Anthony Dare, not pain of body. That pain has passed from me. I would have sent for you and Julia before, but I did not think until yesterday that the end was so near. Never let a man be guilty of !" broke Mr. Cooper, . "Or let him know that it will come home to him to trouble his dying bed."
 
"What can I do for you, sir?" questioned Mr. Dare.
 
"If you will open that bureau, you'll find pen, ink, and paper. Julia, come here: and see that we are alone."
 
The servant left the room, and Mrs. Dare came forward, of her cloaks. She wore a handsome dark-blue satin dress (much the fashion at that time) with a good deal of rich white lace about it, a heavy gold chain, and some very sh............