daughter."

"Marry her!" I gasped.

"Yes. Not being in possession of all her faculties, she will, therefore, not distinguish between her true lover and yourself. She will believe herself married to him, and her last moments will be rendered happy."

I did not reply. The suggestion held me dumbfounded.

"I know that the proposal is a very extraordinary one," he went on, his voice trembling in deep earnestness, "but I make it to you in desperation. By my own ill-advised action and interference, Beryl, my only child, is dying, and I am determined, if possible, to bring peace to her poor unbalanced mind in these the last hours of her existence. My remorse is bitter, God knows! It is little that I can do in the way of atonement, save to convince her of my forgiveness."

His face, as he bent forward to me at that moment, came, for the first time, within the broad bar of sunlight that fell between us, and I saw how white and haggard it was. The countenance was no longer that of a haughty man, but of one rendered desperate.

"I fear that in this matter it is beyond my power to assist you," I said, stirring myself at last. Truth to tell, his proposal was so staggering that I inclined to the belief that he himself was not quite right in his mind. The curious light in his eyes strengthened this suspicion.

"You will not help me?" he cried starting up.

"You will not assist in bringing happiness to my poor girl in her dying hour?"

"I will be no party to such a flagrant fraud as you propose," I responded quietly.

"The sum insufficient - eh! Well, I'll double it. Let us say twenty thousand."

"And the marriage you suggest is, I presume, to be a mock one?"

"A mock one? No, a real and binding one - entirely legal," he responded. "A marriage in church."

"Would not a mock one be just as effective in the mind of the unfortunate young lady?" I suggested.

"No, there are reasons why a legal marriage should take place," he answered distinctly.

"And they are?"

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