But at the end of September, one mercilessly hot evening, he rose up
in his bed with a little gasp, and said quickly to Reggie:--"Mr.
Burke, I am going to die. I know it in myself. My chest is all
hollow inside, and there's nothing to breathe with. To the best of
my knowledge I have done nowt"--he was returning to the talk of his
boyhood--"to lie heavy on my conscience. God be thanked, I have
been preserved from the grosser forms of sin; and I counsel YOU, Mr.
Burke . . . ."
Here his voice died down, and Reggie stooped over him.
"Send my salary for September to my mother. . . . done great things
with the Bank if I had been spared . . . . mistaken policy . . . .
no fault of mine."
Then he turned his face to the wall and died.
Reggie drew the sheet over Its face, and went out into the verandah,
with his last "mental stimulant"--a letter of condolence and
sympathy from the Directors--unused in his pocket.
"If I'd been only ten minutes earlier," thought Reggie, "I might
have heartened him up to pull through another day."
TOD'S AMENDMENT.
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