"My sister is lying down in her room," answered Michael. He had not once
taken his sombre and embarrassing gaze from the other's face. The voice
in which he uttered this uncalled-for remark was thin in fibre, cold
and impassive. It fell upon Theron's ears with a suggestion of hidden
meaning. He looked uneasily into Michael's eyes, and then away again.
They seemed to be looking straight through him, and there was no
shirking the sensation that they saw and comprehended things with an
unnatural prescience.

"I hope she is feeling better," Theron found himself saying. "Father
Forbes mentioned that she was a little under the weather. I dined with
him last night."

"I am glad that you came," said Michael, after a little pause. His
earnest, unblinking eyes seemed to supplement his tongue with speech of
their own. "I do be thinking a great deal about you. I have matters to
speak of to you, now that you are here."

Theron bowed his head gently, in token of grateful attention. He tried
the experiment of looking away from Michael, but his glance went back
again irresistibly, and fastened itself upon the sick man's gaze, and
clung there.

"I am next door to a dead man," he went on, paying no heed to the
other's deprecatory gesture. "It is not years or months with me, but
weeks. Then I go away to stand up for judgment on my sins, and if it is
His merciful will, I shall see God. So I say my good-byes now, and so
you will let me speak plainly, and not think ill of what I say. You
are much changed, Mr. Ware, since you came to Octavius, and it is not a