“He is delirious,” said they.

“No,” said the stranger, “what he says is true enough, at least in part.”  And, bending over the expiring man, he added, “May Heaven forgive you, Antoine de Chaulieu!  I am no apparition, but the veritable Jacques Rollet, who was saved by one who well knew my innocence.  I may name him, for he is beyond the reach of the law now:  it was Claperon, the jailer, who, in a fit of jealousy, had himself killed Alphonse de Bellefonds.”

“But—­but there were three,” gasped Antoine.

“Yes, a miserable idiot, who had been so long in confinement for a murder that he was forgotten by the authorities, was substituted for me.  At length I obtained, through the assistance of my sister, the position of concierge in the Hotel Marboeuf, in the Rue Grange Bateliere.  I entered on my new place yesterday evening, and was desired to awaken the gentleman on the third floor at seven o’clock.  When I entered the room to do so, you were asleep; but before I had time to speak, you awoke, and I recognized your features in the glass.  Knowing that I could not vindicate my innocence if you chose to seize me, I fled, and seeing an omnibus starting for St. Denis, I got on it with a vague idea of getting on to Calais and crossing the Channel to England.  But having only a franc or two in my pocket, or indeed in the world, I did not know how to procure the means of going forward; and whilst I was lounging about the place, forming first one plan and then another, I saw you in the church, and, concluding that you were in pursuit of me, I thought the best way of eluding your vigilance was to make my way back to Paris as fast as I could; so I set off instantly, and walked all the way; but having no money to pay my night’s lodging, I came here to borrow a couple of livres of my sister Claudine, who is a brodeuse and resides au cinquieme.”

“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed the dying man, “that sin is off my soul.  Natalie, dear wife, farewell!  Forgive—­forgive all.”

These were the last words he uttered; the priest, who had been summoned in haste, held up the cross before his failing sight; a few strong convulsions shook the poor bruised and mangled frame; and then all was still.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

THE BIRTHMARK.

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one.  He had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace-smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife.  In those days, when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity