Augusta, with the child by her, sat in the miserable hut attending to Mr.
Meeson; while outside the pitiless rain poured down in a steady unceasing
sheet of water that came through the wretched roof in streams. She did
her best to keep the dying man dry, but it proved to be almost an
impossibility; for even when she succeeded in preventing the wet from
falling on him from above, it got underneath him from the reeking floor,
while the heavy damp of the air gathered on his garments till they were
quite sodden.

As the hours went on his consciousness came back to him, and with it his
terror for the end and his remorse for his past life, for alas! the
millions he had amassed could not avail him now.

"I am going to die!" he groaned. "I am going to die, and I've been a bad
man: I've been the head of a publishing company all my life!"

Augusta gently pointed out to him that publishing was a very respectable
business when fairly and properly carried on, and not one that ought to
weigh heavy upon a man at the last like the record of a career of
successful usury or burgling.

He shook his heavy head. "Yes, yes," he groaned; "but Meeson's is a
company and you are talking of private firms. They are straight, most of
them; far too straight, I used always to say. But you don't know
Meeson's--you don't know the customs of the trade at Meeson's."

Augusta reflected that she knew a good deal more about Meeson's than
she liked.

"Listen," he said, with desperate energy, sitting up upon the sail, "and