“O uncle!  Miss Reef! save me!  He will beat me to death!”

His uncle endeavored to calm him with his assurance of protection, and, turning to Richard, in a voice husky with emotion said: 

“Look, this, is your work!  If there is a God ruling the universe, your punishment, though tardy, must be sure.”

“I see nothing strange about it,” said Richard, with an assumption of indifference which made his handsome face look to me at that moment like that of a Judas.  “If he is my child, as you say, why should he not be here?  Who has a better right to him than I?  The little imp professes to dislike me, but that is some of your teaching, and I will soon cure him of it.”

“You cannot have him, Richard.  He must go with me.”

“I know my rights, and I will use them,” he replied, excitedly.  “Move that boy at your peril;” and he clapped his hand upon his silver-mounted pocket-pistol.  He had evidently been drinking.  His day at the race-course had maddened him.  He was in a dangerous mood to oppose.  This Mr. Bristed evidently saw, as I did, for he beckoned me to go out for assistance.  As I was moving toward the door for that purpose, Richard’s eye lit upon me.

“Ah, ha!” shouted he, coming toward me.  “So you are the one who has been prying into my affairs.  It is you I must thank for this interference.  Out of this room directly!  Get you gone!”

I should have obeyed, but a sound from Herbert’s bed arrested me—­a sound that awed me more than the angry voice of Richard!  I hurried to the bedside.  Mr. Bristed was there before me.  I looked at the sinking boy.  A stronger hand than his father’s grasped him now. That hand was Death’s!

No need now to remove the little sufferer from his couch to the carriage in waiting.  He would be borne soon by the white-robed angels from the reach of us all!

Even Richard, whose cruel grasp he had eluded, seemed awed as the little spirit burst from its tenement, and a transcendent smile settled on the thin, waxen face, and the white hands folded themselves across the breast with an air of unutterable peace.

CHAPTER XX.

Early the next morning Mr. Bristed accompanied the lifeless body of little Herbert to Bristed Hall.  He begged me to go with him, but I refused his solicitations.  I had other duties before me, which I must perform.  I should have been glad to have rid myself from every one, but that could not be.  Richard did not return, and I was alone; the days dragged heavily away.  I felt that I stood on the brink of a yawning chasm from which I could turn neither to the right nor the left.  The thought of remaining with Richard was abhorrent, and the prospect of leaving him and commencing life anew was also a dreadful alternative.

What shall I do?—­I reflected, as I went my weary way through the classes.  Richard solved that question for me when he returned after an absence of three days.