"What authority have you for making these statements? Remember that you are dying, Julius, and do not try to falsify anything," exclaimed Mr. Stuart, almost sternly.
"I do not forget that I am dying," moaned the sufferer. "I speak the truth as God hears me—the truth as I received it from the lips of your father upon his death-bed."
"He revealed the truth to you instead of to me—strange!" cried the tortured man, almost incredulously.
"Yes; can you guess why?"
"I cannot."
"He repented of his sin, but he was afraid to confess it to you. He dreaded your terrible anger and dreadful despair. He feared that you would curse him upon his dying bed."
"I am afraid I should have done so, indeed," muttered Clarence Stuart.
"So he selected me as the instrument to right the wrong," went on Revington. "He wrote out a full confession of his sin, detailing the means he had used to separate you, and he deputed me to carry it to Bay View, where your first wife had been living all the time while you believed her dead in a foreign land."
"And you failed in your promise to the dead," exclaimed Mr. Stuart, fixing a glance of deep reproach upon his cousin.
"No, I kept my promise. You remember the night we stopped at Brooke Wharf on our way to Italy, Clarence?"