been, God knows!-by ensnaring and betraying to the law all who have trusted me: yourself among the number, Francis Vaughan; but your death will lie heaviest of all upon my soul, when Satan takes me home." "You may have sinned deeply: I am not your accuser. But see how little God asks of you in return for pardon; one act of sincere contrition-a penitent confession- "I came not here to talk of myself," interposed Rookesby impatiently. "Think you that I have had no opportunity within these twenty years for repentance? I know all you would say to me: be it therefore unsaid. Let a man strive to the uttermost to blot the terrors of death and judgment from his mind, it is hopeless for one reared as I was, in the faith for which you suffer, to forget utterly the truths that faith ever teaches. I believe, ay, and tremble too, like the lost spirits; but as I have lived, so shall I die. Enough of me. Take your liberty and life, while there is yet time." "No, Rookesby," said the priest, calmly. "Your unhappy condition forbids me to relinquish the faint hope that your despairing words inspire. I will not avail myself of your offer. You know me, it appears; have some desire, although I am ignorant of the cause, to do me a kindness at possible risk to yourself. But if Heaven vouchsafe me the consolation in my last hours of reclaiming an erring brother, will it not be a source of gratitude to each of us, that you, like St. Paul, betrayed your brethren to death ?" "I have read the story somewhat differently," said Rookesby, with a sneer. "Saul was the persecutor, if my memory serve me in such matters, and not the Apostle Paul." Long and earnestly did the priest strive with his companion. Now and then he thought he detected some faint glimmering of compunction in the saddened countenance of the spy; some slight trace of emotions long since dead, but called into momentary existence by his words; but it passed away almost as suddenly as it came, and all was blank and hardened as before. Rookesby listened in silence, and when the priest paused and cast an appealing glance upon him, he turned away and sought the door. He stood there irresolutely for a moment, gazing vacantly down the corridor, and then returned to the priest's side. “You were puzzled just now,” he said, "to account for my knowledge of you. Look at me: try to carry back your thoughts to an early friend, a hunted recusant, as you were in those days, when we were young and ardent, and unbowed by persecution." His face was haggard and careworn, and deeply furrowed; his sunken eyes were feeble and lustreless; his hair that had once been fair, was grizzled and scanty; and he had a lowering, sidelong expression unpleasant to behold, that had become habitual to him, and that contrasted curiously with the bold, well-defined features that must have been handsome when the prematurely aged man was in his prime. The priest looked at him intently, and doubtfully shook his head. "Years of misery, of sin and shame, have blotted out the traces of what I was once. Yet you should have recognised me. It is strange! I knew you from the first, but could not recall your name. I thought that Francis Vaughan had perished years ago. You suffered, too, in those days; but had you undergone my trials, our positions might have been reversed, and instead of being the wretched apostate you now behold, I, too, might have retained my innocence and my faith. It took them years to crush me. I was strong and proud; but they were stronger still, and struck at me through my dear ones, my-my wife and children. Oh, God! where are they now?" His voice shook, and he clenched his hands passionately with a gesture of mute despair. "Am I to blame for what I have done: for being what I am ?" he went on defiantly, but quailing, notwithstanding, before the calm, pitying eye of the priest. "My home was taken from me piecemeal. I gave the robbers what they demanded, so they might only let me live. My endurance but increased their exactions, stimulated their rapacity, and when they had taken all, I was bidden to prison. My wife! ah, I can see her pale, suffering face still; that grew thinner and paler day by day, while her loving heart was slowly breaking at her separation from all she loved. And I was powerless: I who would gladly have died for their dear sakes! She sickened in the vile air of the dungeon, and the vile companionship of outcasts, devoid of the commonest feelings of humanity. She died in my arms; they suffered me to witness her last pangs, thinking it would shake my resolution; died blessing me and praying for our little ones. My children were sent I know not whither, to learn to curse their unhappy parents, and blaspheme their religion. I have never seen them since; all my efforts to discover their retreat were fruitless. Still I was firm and unyielding. When at large, and enjoying the wretched pittance the exactions of my persecutors had left me, I took the oath of allegiance; shared their false worship: but in prison I would do none of these things. I had no humility, I was not resigned; on the contrary, I gloried in my defiance of their inhuman laws; taunted them to do their worst. But they found a way to break me in at last. They chained me to a block in the castle-yard, and day and night for months I sat there, in cold and heat, in rain and snow, shelterless, and all but starved until I submitted. * I did not recover the use of my limbs for a long time after my release. Then * A literal fact, with this difference, that the sufferer was a priest. I became their creature, body and soul-their spy, the treacherous betrayer of ancient friends and brother sufferers. There is a limit to all endurance. I had reached mine. All-all was lost to me: my wife, my children, my faith, my very soul !" "I know you now," said the priest softly, taking the other's unresisting hand. "Unhappy man! Yet you speak truly; such might have been my fate, had God not dealt more gently with me. But, oh, Gilbert Laugton, because you have fallen, do you therefore despair? You cannot undo the past; but He who came to call sinners and not the just to repentance, has waited for, and watched over you during all your wanderings--" "It may be so," interposed Rookesby. "My story is a common one in these cruel times. But breathe not my name again. It is dead, like all else that I once owned. Trouble yourself no more for me. I came hither to do you a service: a poor one, I fear, but the last that is in my power. I could not see you die unjustly without making this effort to save you." "You will not heed me then," said the priest mournfully. "Hark! what is that?" said Rookesby, starting up. "The chief warder has returned; I hear his voice. The time is past then, and I am useless now. But before we part, I would crave your pardon for the share I have in your death; nay, do not speak," he continued checking the priest, "let forgiveness come only from your heart; remember me in your prayers, if you can mingle with them a name so hateful and sin-stained as mine. I think that is all," he went on drearily. "Nay, do not look at me with such pitiful tenderness, it unmans me. I could bear your curses better. You have wrung from me the first complaint my lips have uttered for twenty years and I have suffered; great God in Heaven, thou knowest how bitterly!" He clasped his hands in uncontrollable anguish. "I say not that I do not repent, nor that my soul is not filled with unavailing remorse. The remembrance of what we were both once forces itself upon my heart. You have triumphed in your sufferings, while mine have crushed my soul to the lowest depths of hell!" He pressed the Jesuit's hand to his hot, dry lips with a passionate affection, strangely at variance with his rough speech, and, as if afraid to trust himself further, rushed hurriedly from the cell. The priest heard him lock and bar the door; and when the echoes of his footsteps along the corridor had died away, and all again was silent, he sank upon his knees and buried his face in his hands. It was not for himself he prayed, albeit eternity's threshold was but a step from him; nor for his child: but for a lost, despairing soul that grovelled in the mire; upon whom Heaven's wrath lay heavy, but whom Heaven's pitying hand perchance might reach. Amid a busy, jostling throng, and under a strong guard, the |