If the series of striking coincidences which appeared to attest its truth had made a strong and lasting impression on _me_ (and this was assuredly the case), how could I wonder that they had produced the effect of absolute conviction on _his_ mind, constituted as it was?
If I argued with him, and he answered me, how could I rejoin?
If he said, "The prophecy points at the last of the family: _I_ am the last of the family.

The prophecy mentions an empty place in Wincot vault; there is such an empty place there at this moment.

On the faith of the prophecy I told you that Stephen Monkton's body was unburied, and you found that it was unburied"-- if he said this, what use would it be for me to reply, "These are only strange coincidences after all ?" The more I thought of the task that lay before me, if he recovered, the more I felt inclined to despond.

The oftener the English physician who attended on him said to me, "He may get the better of the fever, but he has a fixed idea, which never leaves him night or day, which has unsettled his reason, and which will end in killing him, unless you or some of his friends can remove it"-- the oftener I heard this, the more acutely I felt my own powerlessness, the more I shrank from every idea that was connected with the hopeless future.
I had only expected to receive my answer from Wincot in the shape of a letter.

It was consequently a great surprise, as well as a great relief, to be informed one day that two gentlemen wished to speak with me, and to find that of these two gentlemen the first was the old priest, and the second a male relative of Mrs.Elmslie.
Just before their arrival the fever symptoms had disappeared, and Alfred had been pronounced out of danger.