“Colonel Reybold,” faltered that old wreck of manly beauty and of promise long departed, “old Beau’s passing in his checks. The chant coves will be telling to-morrow what they know of his life in the papers, but I’ve dropped a cold deck on ’em these twenty years. Not one knows old Beau, the Bloke, to be Tom Basil, cadet at West Point in the last generation. I’ve kept nothing of my own but my children’s good names. My little boy never knew me to be his father. I tried to keep the secret from my daughter, but her affection broke down my disguises. Thank God! the old rounder’s deal has run out at last. For his wife he’ll flash her diles no more, nor be taken on the vag.”

“Basil,” said Reybold, “what trust do you leave to me in your family?”

Mrs. Basil strove to interpose, but the dying man raised his voice: “Tryphonee can go home to Fauquier. She was always welcome there—without me. I was disinherited. But here, Colonel! My last drop of blood is in the girl. She loves you.”

A rattle arose in the sinner’s throat. He made an effort, and transferred his daughter’s hand to the Congressman’s. Not taking it away, she knelt with her future husband at the bedside and raised her voice:

“Lord, when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom, remember him!”