Hilda bent over him.  “Hubert and I are here,” she said, slowly, in a strangely calm voice; “but that is not enough.  I want a public, an attested, confession.  It must be given before witnesses, and signed and sworn to.  Somebody might throw doubt upon my word and Hubert’s.”

Sebastian shrank back.  “Given before witnesses, and signed and sworn to!  Maisie, is this humiliation necessary; do you exact it?”

Hilda was inexorable.  “You know yourself how you are situated.  You have only a day or two to live,” she said, in an impressive voice.  “You must do it at once, or never.  You have postponed it all your life.  Now, at this last moment, you must make up for it.  Will you die with an act of injustice unconfessed on your conscience?”

He paused and struggled.  “I could—­if it were not for you,” he answered.

“Then do it for me,” Hilda cried.  “Do it for me!  I ask it of you not as a favour, but as a right.  I demand it!” She stood, white, stern, inexorable, by his couch, and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

He paused once more.  Then he murmured feebly, in a querulous tone, “What witnesses?  Whom do you wish to be present?”

Hilda spoke clearly and distinctly.  She had thought it all out with herself beforehand.  “Such witnesses as will carry absolute conviction to the mind of all the world; irreproachable, disinterested witnesses; official witnesses.  In the first place, a commissioner of oaths.  Then a Plymouth doctor, to show that you are in a fit state of mind to make a confession.  Next, Mr. Horace Mayfield, who defended my father.  Lastly, Dr. Blake Crawford, who watched the case on your behalf at the trial.”

“But, Hilda,” I interposed, “we may possibly find that they cannot come away from London just now.  They are busy men, and likely to be engaged.”

“They will come if I pay their fees.  I do not mind how much this costs me.  What is money compared to this one great object of my life?”

“And then—­the delay!  Suppose that we are too late?”

“He will live some days yet.  I can telegraph up at once.  I want no hole-and-corner confession, which may afterwards be useless, but an open avowal before the most approved witnesses.  If he will make it, well and good; if not, my life-work will have failed.  But I had rather it failed than draw back one inch from the course which I have laid down for myself.”

I looked at the worn face of Sebastian.  He nodded his head slowly.  “She has conquered,” he answered, turning upon the pillow.  “Let her have her own way.  I hid it for years, for science’ sake.  That was my motive, Cumberledge, and I am too near death to lie.  Science has now nothing more to gain or lose by me.  I have served her well, but I am worn out in her service.  Maisie may do as she will.  I accept her ultimatum.”