My time had come.  The opportunity was most mysteriously given me to redeem the promise made in the morning to Miss Lettie.  I began, quite timidly at first, to say that I had a message for Mr. Axtell, one from his sister,—­that I was to tell him of events whose occurrence he never knew.  He listened quietly, and I went on, commencing at the afternoon of my imprisonment in the tower.  I told every word that I had heard from Miss Axtell,—­no more.  I trembled, it is true, when I came to the death of Alice, and the new life that came to his elder sister.  I came at last to Mary.  I told it all, the night when he came home, the very words he had spoken to his sister I repeated in his ears, and he was quiet, with a quietness Axtells know, I took out the package and opened it, saying,—­

“Your sister bade me give this to you.”

The careful folds were unwrapped, and within a box lay only a silver cup.  Mr. Axtell took it into his hands, turned it to the light, and read on it the name of my sister.  I said to him,—­

“Look on the inside.”

He did.  It was the fatal cup from which Mary Percival drank the death-drops.  Poisonous crystals lay in its depth.  I told him so.  I told him how Bernard McKey, driven to despair, had made the fatal mistake.

I thought to have seen the sunlight of joy go up his face.  I looked for the glance whose coming his sister so dreaded; but it came not.  My story gave no joy to this strange man.  He asked a few questions only, tending to illumine points that my statement had left in uncertainty, and then, when my last words were said, he rose up, and, standing before me, very lowly pronounced these words:—­

“Until to-night, Abraham Axtell never knew the weight of his guilt.  He must work out his punishment.”

“How can you, Mr. Axtell?  Heaven hath appointed forgiveness for the repentant.”

“And freedom from punishment, Miss Percival, is that, too, promised?”

“Strength to bear is freely offered in forgiveness.”

“May it come to me!  In all God’s earth to-night there dwells not one more needy of Heaven’s mercy.”

“Mary forgives you,” I said.

“Bernard McKey, whom I have made most miserable, Lettie’s life-long suffering, is there any atonement that I can offer to them?”

“Yes, Mr. Axtell”; and I, too, arose, for the party had gone whilst I was telling my story.

“Will you name it?”

“Give unto the two a brother’s love.  Good night, Mr. Axtell.”

“I will,” said a deep, solemn voice close beside me.  I turned, and Mr. Axtell was gone.  I heard footsteps all that night upon deck.  They sounded like those that came and stood beside me hours before.

Day was scarcely breaking when we came to land in New York.  I waited for the carriage to come from home.  Mr. Axtell, was it he who came, with whitened hair, to ask for Miss Percival, to know if he could offer her any service?  What a night of agony he must have lived through!  He saw my look of astonishment, and said,—­