will hurry up; I'm sure you need n't feel backward. It would be a pleasure to me, Floyd."

The wistfulness of the suggestion wrung the young man's heart; he could make no answer, and Colonel Halket did not press him further.

The next morning Colonel Halket began to fail rapidly; in twenty-four hours he had passed into a doze from which he was never wholly roused; and three days later he died, as he had hoped, at dawn.