"Are you sure, quite sure, that I must die?" moaned the sufferer, while the dews of terror beaded the weakly, handsome face which had escaped the vicious hoofs that had beaten the life from his body.
"You cannot possibly live but a few hours longer," repeated the physician as kindly as he could speak, and with a deep pity on his face that would not have been there could he have guessed that the wretch had wrought his own destruction.
Moans of terror and despair welled over the man's blanched lips when he realized that death was so near him. He begged that a priest might be sent for to pray the pardon of Heaven on his sinful soul.
"And your friends," they asked him, "shall we not bring them, too?"
With a moan of pain he answered:
"Send some one with a swift horse to overtake Clarence Stuart, who is returning to his villa in the suburbs. Tell him Julius Revington is dying, and—the lady—who was in the carriage—with the runaway horses—if she is living, bring her to me with all haste."
[CHAPTER XLIII.]
The willing hearts were not wanting to do the bidding of the dying man. Messengers went in three different directions, while the physician remained to assuage by all means that lay in his power the agonies that racked that tortured form. Anon the priest came, and with prayers and holy words strove to comfort the poor departing soul.