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"Go on. I must know."

"Charlie met some of his old cronies, quite by accident; there was a dinner-party, and they made him go, just for a good-by they said. He couldn't refuse, and it was too much for him. He would come home alone in the storm, though they tried to keep him as he wasn't fit. Down by the new bridge,—that high embankment you know,—the wind had put the lantern out—he forgot—or something scared Brutus, and all went down together."

Archie had spoken fast and brokenly; but Rose understood, and at the last word hid her face with a little moan, as if she saw it all.

"Drink this and never mind the rest," he said, dashing into the next room and coming back with a glass of water, longing to be done and away; for this sort of pain seemed almost as bad as that he had left.

Rose drank, but held his arm tightly as he would have turned away, saying in a tone of command he could not disobey,—

"Don't keep any thing back: tell me the worst at once."

"We knew nothing of it," he went on obediently. "Aunt Clara thought he was with me, and no one found him till early this morning. A workman recognized him; and he was brought home, dead they thought. I came for uncle an hour ago. Charlie is conscious now, but awfully hurt; and I'm afraid from the way Mac and uncle look at one another that—Oh!