"It was a small but comfortable chamber, neatly carpeted, and furnished with a table (covered with writing materials and a few books), three large oaken chairs, and two beds, in one of which, with his face turned to the wall, as if to avoid the trembling rays of light that flickered upon the table, lay an old man, apparently about eighty-five years of age. As the evening was sultry, his only covering was a single linen sheet thrown loosely over him, from which his emaciated arm and small, livid fingers had escaped, and lay languidly by his side. His high, straight forehead, and calm features, which, from their perfect outline, neither age nor disease had robbed of their serene beauty, were pale as marble. The window was partly open to admit the cool air from the river, and the night breeze fanned gently the thin, snow-white locks that still lingered about his temples. The tall form of Goffe bent over him, long and silently, while he read with mournful earnestness the ravages of superannuation and disease in every lineament and furrow of the venerable face of his friend. Then, turning to the clergyman, who still remained standing by the table, he asked, in a voice choked with grief, while a tear sparkled in his bright eye, 'How long is it, my son, since he spoke intelligibly? Hath he inquired after me to-day?'
"'About one o'clock, when I brought him his simple meal, he roused himself for a moment, and demanded of me if 'I had seen his dear major-general;' but when I sought to prolong the conversation, and asked if he would see Goffe, his beloved son-in-law, he smiled, and said 'Yes;' but added, soon after, 'No, no: I have no son, and Goffe died long ago.''
"'Alas!' replied Goffe—seating himself, and motioning the clergyman to a seat that stood near him—'alas! I fear that my fruitless journey hath taken from me the privilege I most prized on earth—the administering of consolation to the last moments of this more than father.'
"'You call it a fruitless journey, then? And did you hear no tidings of the long-lost son?'
"'None: I have ridden over ground where the sound of my very name would have echoed treason; I have sought him out among men who, had they known the name of the seeker, would gladly have bought the royal favor by seizing and delivering over to the hands of the executioner the wasted, life-weary regicide. I have this very day encountered the mortal enemy of me and my race; but my arm struck down the wretch, as it has stricken down many a better man in the days of the Protector. He paid the price of his mad folly in the last debt to nature.'
"'An enemy! and slain! Have you, then, been discovered?'
"'Ay, an enemy to God and man. But did I not tell thee that he was dead? Death is no betrayer of secrets: the hounds that scented my blood, bore off his mutilated remains, but they will gladly leave them in the wilderness to gorge the wolf and the raven.'
"'Who is this fallen enemy?'
"'Edward Randolph.'
"'Edward Randolph! Have you met and slain Edward Randolph?'