"Never! so help me Heaven!" Bessie answered, as she fell on her knees beside him, and bowed her face in her hands.
Surely in this extremity she might tell him of her engagement to Neil, and after a moment she said: "Father, don't let a thought of my future trouble you. That is provided for. I am to be Neil's wife. We settled that last Christmas, but he did not wish me to tell you till something definite was arranged. He meant you to live with us. We were not to be separated; he is very kind," she added, earnestly, as she felt her father's surprise and possible disapprobation in his silence.
"And you love him? You believe he will make you happy?" Archie said, at last, and Bessie replied: "I love him; and I believe he will make me as happy as I can be with you gone. Oh, father, you don't like Neil! You never did."
There was reproach in Bessie's voice, as she said this, and the sick man answered her: "There are many noble traits in Neil's character, but he is a McPherson, with all their foolish pride of birth, and blood, and ancestors. As if paupers like us have any right to such nonsense! Were I to live my life again, I would turn a hand-organ in the street to earn my bread if there were no other way. Yes, Neil is very nice and good, but not the husband I would have chosen for you. I liked the others better, Mr. Trevellian, and the American--what is his name?"
"Jerrold, Grey Jerrold," Bessie replied, and after a moment her father continued: "Where is Neil? His place is here with you, if he is to be your husband. Send for him at once; there is no time to lose. You must not be alone, and the hours are very few, and the birds are singing so loud; send for Neil at once."
Bessie did not know where Neil was now, as the last time she heard from him he was in Paris, with his mother and Blanche; but she would take the chance that he was at home, and a telegram that her father was dying and he must come immediately was soon speeding along the wires to Trevellian House, in London.
Slowly the hours of that glorious summer day went by, and Archie's pulse grew fainter and his voice weaker, while the real birds without in the yews, and in the hedge-rows, and the imaginary birds within, sang louder and clearer, and the dying man listened to them with a rapt look in his white face, and a light in his eyes which told of peace and a perfectly painless death.