It was Frank Manly, who knelt, and with passionate grief clasped the hand that had clasped his in fondness and merry sport so often in the happy days of his childhood, when neither ever dreamed of their unnatural separation and this still more unnatural meeting.
"Frank! my little brother! so grown! is it you?" said the wounded captive, with dreamy surprise.
"O George! how could you?" Frank began, with anguish in his voice. But he checked himself; he would not reproach his dying brother.
"My wife, you know!" was all the unhappy young man could murmur. He looked at Frank with a faint and ever fainter smile of love, till his eyes grew dim. "I am going, Frank. It is all wrong—I know now—but it is too late. Tell mother——"
His words became inaudible, and he sank, swooning, in Captain Edney's arms.
"What, George? what shall I tell mother?" pleaded Frank, in an agony.
"And father too," said the dying lips, in a moment of reviving recollection. "And my sisters——" But the message was never uttered.
"George! O, George! I am here! Don't you see me?"
The dim eyes opened; but they saw not.
"Carry me up stairs! Let me die in the old room—our room, Frank."