“Poisoned.”
“By whom?” inquired Colonel Dacre, resolutely but reluctantly.
But the poor creature’s mind had wandered off, and he babbled of “Mother” incoherently, as if he fancied he were a child again.
Colonel Dacre would have fetched some brandy from the inn, but as he saw that no human means could avail aught, he considered it better to remain where he was.
Almost involuntarily he began to repeat the beautiful prayer with which most of us begin and end our day, and when he came to “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,” the dying man raised himself on his elbow, and said, loudly and distinctly:
“Tell her I forgive her, and——”
But the sentence was never finished in this world. He fell back heavily on the turf, and when Colonel Dacre looked into his face he saw that he was gone.
CHAPTER VI.
THE LAST WALTZ.
For fully five minutes Colonel Dacre knelt beside the lifeless body, then he rose up stern and resolute to do his duty. First of all he roused Wiginton, and had the dead man carried into the inn, and laid on the bed he had occupied twenty-four hours ago. Wiginton evidently thought that it was a case of sudden death, for he said, with real feeling: