CHAPTER XXXVIII.

“If one is to have it, one will have it, whatever is done about the drains,” said Mrs. Parke.

“But oh, mamma,” said Letty, “why a nurse? I know a great deal about nursing. There were those two ambulance classes. It would be so much nicer for dear Mar to have his own people about him. Sarah would sit up at night, she is very fond of him, and I would take care of him in the day.”

Letitia did not take the trouble to reply, but looked at the girl only, crushing her as effectually as by a torrent of words. “He shall have every care,” she said, “and the best that can be got, but he has no constitution, and I fear it will go badly with him. There is no use in deceiving ourselves.”

“Don’t be a croaker,” cried John, getting up from his chair. It would have been strange, perhaps, if there had not flashed across the mind of John all that was implied in this evil augury. He was not quick, nor was he more selfish than other men, but into the hearts of the most innocent there is projected by times a picture as from a magic-lantern, showing as it seems from without, not from within, in a sudden glare of diabolical light the advantage which a great misfortune to someone else may bring them. John was as much horrified by this sudden perception as if he had been compassing the end of Mar. He cried out, “Good God!” which was in reality an appeal against the devilish light that had flashed upon him without any will of his; and then his voice melted, and he murmured, “Poor little Mar. Poor little Mar!”

“Don’t give in in that way, father,” cried Duke. “Typhoid fever is bad enough, but not so bad as mother makes out. Why, I know half a dozen men who have had it. At Harrow there was one fellow as bad as bad could be, and not strong, just like Mar, and he got round all right. The stronger the fellow the worse it is for him. That’s what all the doctors say.”

These words brought a cold chill to Letitia. In her thoughts, by way of forestalling all the disappointments there might happen, she had already thought of this.

“Oh, mamma, send for some new book from Mudie’s directly,” said Tiny; “when Mar is ill we can never get enough books to satisfy him.”

“Oh hold your tongue, Tiny. He will be too ill to read books,” said Letty with tears, “and one must not let him talk either, but just a very little—nor even talk to him to amuse him till the fever goes off.”

“How dull it will be for Mar!” cried Tiny. “I am sure I shall talk to him and tell him everything. To be dull is as bad as having a fever. Because you have gone to the ambulances you think you know—but I don’t believe in keeping people so quiet. When I had the measles——”

“Be quiet both of you,” said Mrs. Parke, “and understand that neither of you go near Mar. He must be left in the hands of the nurses—it is too serious to play with. I shall go myself every day to see that all is right.”

There was a chorus of outcries at this decision, but Mrs. Parke was not moved. “No one must disturb him,” she repeated. “The people who have the best chance are the people in the hospitals—and Mar must be treated just as if he were in a hospital.—I will not have him disturbed.”

“Is it so grave as that, Letitia?” asked John, very seriously, scarcely looking at her. He began to divine partly from that gleam which had come upon himself what must be in her mind.

“Nothing could be more grave,” she said, vehemently; “anyone except a schoolboy or a silly girl must see that. What Duke says is nonsense. It stands to reason that a weakly boy with no constitution to fall back upon, attacked by a slow disease that eats away the strength——”

John Parke rose as if the thought were intolerable, and went out of the room hurriedly. He was trying to escape from that devilish suggestion. The boy would die; all the hindrances would be removed; the inheritance would be his which he had always looked forward to, which had been supposed to be his all his life. Not in John’s honest brain was that thought bred. It filled him with horror of himself. It made him feel as if he were Mar’s murderer, anticipating the boy’s doom. “God forgive me! God forgive me!” cried John: and he went out covered with a cold dew of trouble to humble himself and struggle with the demon. These horrible suggestions come sometimes to the minds that most loathe them: which proves to many people that there is a devil, a dreadful Satan, trying what harm he can do, even though we grow contemptuous of the horns and hoofs.

The doctor, however, was not so gloomy as Letitia. “It is quite true that he must not be disturbed; but keeping up his spirits is half the battle, and he must not be abandoned either. Mrs. Parke is too anxious. I have always told her she made more than was necessary of young Frogmore’s complaints. He’s delicate, of course. Still there’s no reason for giving up hope.”

“My boy, Duke,” said John, “says that it’s worse for strong fellows than for weak. I don’t know if he’s right.”

“Well, it’s never a good thing to be weak,” said Dr. Barker, “but there’s a kind of truth in it. For the fever sometimes runs higher with a man in the prime of life. Keep up your spirits. If no complications arise we’ll pull him through.”

Those cheerful tones found no response in the countenance of Letitia, which was tragical in the paleness of passionate feeling. Every word that was uttered by the medical optimist was like a knell in Letitia’s heart. If it should be so indeed—but it could not, it would not be so.

“Mrs. Parke has always taken too serious a view,” said the cheerful doctor. “I have told her so for years.”

“I don’t say that I don’t always take a serious view,” said Letitia. “It is my temperament I suppose—but you will bear me witness, doctor, that I never have been so anxious about my own children as I have been about Mar.”

“Yes, that is true,” said the doctor, with a quick glance at her, in which there was something uncertain, doubtful. Perhaps it was the look of suppressed excitement in her which struck Dr. Barker as something strange. She was not an over-anxious mother. Was it love or another sentiment that made her so tragic about Mar? A slight shiver ran over the honest and sensible country practitioner, but he was far too little accustomed to evil passions to follow it further. He could not take into his mind such a dreadful thought; it was like a ghostly figure sweeping by in the dark, such as he sometimes met on lonely roads on winter nights—not able to tell whether it was a belated fugitive or a distorted shadow. Another subject of more practical importance, as he thought, displaced this vague apprehension. “By the by,” he said, “I must not forget one thing. I have been talking to you of the state of those cottages on the other side of the park for years. I’ve got the water to analyze which these poor people are drinking, and I believe it’s the cause of poor young Frogmore’s illness. Let this be a reason at once for seeing after their condition: at least it will be getting some good out of the evil which now you cannot prevent. You know I’ve been talking about it for years.”

“The cottages?” said John. He added, “You know I’m in a peculiar position, I can do nothing without Blotting. It’s not as if it was my own property.”

“Oh what is the use of talking of such things just now,” said Letitia, sharply. There was a sort of half electrical glance between the two which the doctor felt to blaze across him, scorching his face. He gave a horrified look from one to the other, surprising that infernal light in Letitia’s eyes. But John’s were covered with downcast eyelids, and the look of his somewhat heavy face did not coincide with that unearthly, devilish flash. Dr. Barker, however, was struck as a man might be struck by lightning. He seemed to lose his moral equilibrium for the moment. A chill horror ran in his veins. When he thought of the boy-patient upstairs with his cheeks growing hollow and his eyes large under the influence of the fever, and these two, watching its progress, perhaps communicating to each other how things were going, hoping for the worst and not the better conclusion, it was as if the earth had been cut away from under his feet, and he saw himself suddenly on the edge of a horrible precipice. He rode away upon his rounds with a doubt whether it was safe to leave the house, whether he ought not to set up some special guard that no evil should approach the boy. Poor boy, with no one who loved him to look after him, but only dangerous hate and the vigilance of an enemy! The honest country doctor had never in his life been struck as he was that day with a sense of secret horror, danger, and possible crime concealed under the smooth surface of ordinary existence. Twice he turned back before he had got out of the avenue with the idea of warning his nurses, recommending to them special vigilance, and not to allow Mrs. Parke to have anything to do with the patient. But how dared he do such a thing, to rouse any suspicion of the mistress of the house? He had no evidence but a glance, and who could rely upon a look? He might, very probably had, must have, mistaken it; and twice he turned his horse, and at last rode away, but with a mind troubled by many anxious thoughts. He consoled himself by thinking that with two nurses on whom he could depend no harm could happen to the patient. But after all it was not so much the harm that could happen as the dreadful idea that his nearest relations were watching by his sick bed, hoping that he might never rise from it, that upset the doctor. He said to himself that between that and doing anything to expedite the end there was a great difference, and perhaps it was impossible when there was so much at stake not to be conscious what a difference it would make. Dr. Barker had been in the district a long time, and remembered Lord Frogmore’s marriage, and how everybody said it was very hard upon John Parke. So it was, very hard. To expect so long that he was to be his brother’s heir, and then to be suddenly cut out. There had been a great deal of sympathy with him at the time, and perhaps it was impossible now not to think if the boy was removed—— Perhaps it was natural, inevitable, that the disappointed pair should be open to that thought. But to imagine them watching, waiting, while the innocent boy lay ill, hoping for a bad turn, higher fever, hopeless complications—— Good heavens, could anything more dreadful be?

John Parke was innocent of entertaining such thoughts. But he divined them, and his heart was wrung within him. He scarcely spoke to Letitia while the fever strengthened its hold upon Mar, but went solemnly morning and evening to the door to ask of the nurses how their patient was. Sometimes he stood at the open door looking in, saying as well as he could a cheerful good-morning to the boy. “Make haste and get well, my lad,” he would say; and John, though he was not given to anything of the kind, would sometimes bring a rose and sometimes a piece of flowering myrtle from the great tree at the door of the conservatory to lay on the little table at Mar’s bedside. Mar, when he was able to remark them, was much touched by these little attentions, and John would go away again soothed by the sight of the active nurses in their white aprons, and the quiet and order of the sick room. It was a comfort to think that everything was being done. This is a great consolation to every kind looker-on whose anxiety is less urgent than that of love. John never saw Letitia there; he knew that the nurse who was on duty, if moved by no profound sentiment for one patient more than another was yet on the whole desirous that every one should get well, and had her professional reputation more or less involved in the success of her nursing. There was thus at least no hostile sentiment, only well wishers, careful watchers, concerned for his recovery, who were near the boy.

But neither he nor any one any more than the doctor had any fear of Letitia as if she had been capable of plotting against the young life. No, no, no, a hundred times no. They divined the passion that was in her, the sense of a possibility which would change everything in life, and perhaps, perhaps a wish against which in her heart no doubt she struggled, and would not allow that the balance should turn the wrong way. John pushed the thought from him with passion, ashamed of himself for his suspicion of his wife. He felt that she would not be sorry for Mar’s obliteration—such a faint, young, powerless personality—from existence: which would have such tremendous consequences that her mind was carried away by them. And that was bad enough, but it was all. She would not harm him any more than she would harm Duke; and at the utmost, when all was said, the only evidence against Letitia even to this extent was a strange gleam which had got into her eyes.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

The nurse looked at him and shook her head. She too had grown to like the patient boy. She put up her hand to her eyes to dash away the rising tears. “He must not see that I have been crying,” she said.

“Is that what he means? Do you think that’s what he means? And do you think so too?” cried Duke. “Oh, don’t say so, nurse, don’t say so; it would break my heart.”

“I won’t say so,” she replied. “I think with such a young thing as that there is always hope.”

“And you know a lot,” said Duke, “as much as the doctor. God bless you for saying so! But you think that is what he means? And he lies there—and smiles—and thinks—of that,” said the young man, with his face full of awe. He set out in all the vigor of his young life in the brightness of the summer day to his light work and boundless amusement with all the world before him—and Mar lying there, smiling, thinking of that. Duke felt as if his own lightly beating heart stood still in the poignancy of the contrast. Oh, why could not he give some of his life to help out that flickering existence? He went away feeling that there was a pall over the sunshine, and that nothing would ever be truly bright again. But to be sure that was a mood that could not last.

Mrs. Parke had given orders at first that the girls were not to go near the sick room, but she had not thought then how long it would go on, an endless dreadful ordeal. And when they stole in, now Letty, now Tiny, their mother either did not find it out or made no remark. Letitia during all this time of suspense was of a very strange aspect—her husband and her children did not know what to make of her. She talked very little to them; did not interfere with their pursuits as she usually did. She seemed to care for nothing. Naturally there were no guests or entertainments of any kind, and her interest in her household affairs, which was usually so minute and unending, seemed to have faded altogether. She wrote no letters, made no calls, her social life seemed to come to an end. She did not even go to church, which was a habit she had always kept up rigorously. Three or four times a day she went to the sick room for news of the patient, and it was there alone that she seemed to wake up completely. She put the nurses through a catechism of questions. She attended upon the doctor when he came, and listened to everything he said and that was said to him with a hungry curiosity. Her countenance did not vary or betray it. It was known that she was “over-anxious,” that she had always taken a despairing view. When he was pronounced to be a little better there was a little quiver of her head, like an unspoken contradiction; and when he was a little worse a sort of assenting gleam came into her eyes. The nurses did not like her, and answered her questions as briefly as possible. Her determination that everything must go badly irritated the women, who had a natural confidence in themselves and in what their nursing could do, and they both believed that she was more satisfied when the news was bad than when it was good. “She’s not like his mother,” they said between themselves, “and she’s fixed in her mind from the first that this is how it’s to be—as some people would rather see their mother die than be proved wrong in their opinion.” They thought no worse of her than this. As a matter of fact Letitia was very unhappy during this long suspense. She had never anticipated anything of the kind. What she had expected was an illness which would last perhaps a week, and this long lingering malady confounded and exasperated her. She was angry with poor Mar for being so long about deciding what to do, and with the doctor who would not say anything definite, and the nurses whose opinions wavered from hour to hour. “How is a person to tell when you are never in the same mind from one hour to another?” she said with the resentment of highly excited nerves. She was strung to the very highest pitch, thinking of nothing else, longing for a crisis, that she might know what she had to look for. She was never at rest for a moment whatever she was doing, but kept always listening, always intent. Every step that approached she thought was some one come to call her, to tell her there was a change. She dropped her work upon her knee, or let her pen fall, to listen for every sound that arose. On the critical day of each week when a crisis might be expected she was so restless that she could not keep still. “My wife is so anxious,” John said, trying to persuade himself that her anxiety was the natural anxiety, the desire that the patient should get well. That anxiety is terrible enough as most know; but the other anxiety, the horrible watch which is for the patient getting worse, the longing for “a change” in the worst sense—a change that meant death, how horrible is that, beyond all description! When she talked at all she talked of his symptoms and of what the night nurse said, and what the other said. The nurses took different sides as was natural. One of them was pessimist, the other took the doctor’s view. It was the night nurse that was the gloomy one—and with her Mrs. Parke was in the habit of having a long consultation very early when she was relieved in the morning—a consultation from which she derived a little satisfaction, and which calmed her nervous excitement. But the day nurse with the cheerful look, who always insisted that the patient was a little better, or looked a little brighter, or had a little more strength, or at all events was “no worse,” brought back the nervous excitement which was like a fire in her veins.

The fifth week had begun, and the fight of life and death on the boy’s wasted frame was becoming every hour more intense. Would his strength hold out? “He has no strength,” said the night nurse. “I feel every hour as if from minute to minute the collapse must come.” “I don’t say he isn’t very weak,” said the more cheerful sister, “but you never can tell with a delicate boy like that how strong the constitution may be. Sometimes it’s like iron and steel, and yet no appearance.” The doctor stood and looked at the worn young countenance upon the pillow. Mar had scarcely strength to open his eyes, to respond to the doctor’s inquiries and acknowledge the stir of his morning visit. There was a faint smile upon his face, and sometimes a wistful look round upon the group about his bed, moving slowly from one to another. His mind had never been affected. Sometimes he lay as if in a dream, but when recalled was “always himself” the nurse said, “and that is surely a good sign.” Dr. Barker did not deny that it was a good sign, but he looked graver than ever. Letitia devoured him with eager eyes when they stood face to face outside the sick room.

“What do you think, doctor?” she said.

“I have told you a hundred times what I think,” he replied, with the petulance of distress. “I cannot form a new opinion every hour. If his strength holds out he will do well. All depends upon that. I suppose,” he added hastily, “his mother has been kept informed.”

“His mother—what does she care?” said Letitia in her excitement. “It is a great thing to us, but it is nothing to her.”

“Yes, I can see it is a great thing to you,” he answered, with a clouded countenance. “But she has been told I suppose?”

“Oh, what does it matter? What does it matter?” Letitia said within herself in the misery of her suspense. But she wrung her hands till they hurt her, and controlled herself. “I believe news has been sent,” she said.

“But that is not enough,” said the doctor, glad on his side to have some reason to find fault, to relieve his own brain and heart with an outburst. “She must be told that his state is very serious. She must be made to know——”

“Then you think his state is very serious?” said Letitia, with a kind of wildness of concealed exultation in her eyes.

“Have I ever said otherwise?” said the doctor. “Can anyone look at him and not see that?—very grave but not hopeless, Mrs. Parke. You will never get me to say more.”

“It is only because I want to know the truth,” she said, abashed.

“I will never tell you anything but the truth. The mother ought to know. However indifferent she may be there must be some human feeling left. I remember her as a very sweet woman. And then there was the aunt who was devoted to the boy.”

“You speak as if there was but one,” said Letitia, with a forced smile.

“Oh, I do not overlook your anxiety, Mrs. Parke! No doubt it is very great—but the other ladies must be told. Tell them——” The doctor paused when he saw her hungry look. It flashed into her face that now she would hear the exact truth how much there was to fear and how much to hope. She looked at him as he paused, clasping her hands tight.

“Yes?” she said, breathless. The doctor, it was evident, had thought better of what he was going to say.

“Tell them,” he said, “that the circumstances are serious: that there is an absence of certain of the worse symptoms—but again that the matter is grave. It all depends on how his strength keeps up. And that in the present position of affairs I think they should be here.”

“You think they should be here,” Letitia repeated breathlessly. It seemed to her the most satisfactory utterance she had yet heard.

“Yes, it would be an ease to your own mind to have his nearest relatives on the spot. They would share your anxiety at least—and it is not as if there was any want of room. They should have been here at once—to prevent reflections—in case anything should happen.”

A lightning gleam seemed to come out of Letitia’s eyes—like that electrical flash which the doctor had thought scorched him when Mar’s illness began.

“Then you think——” she said with a heaving of her breast.

“I think no more than what I have said: but to have Lady Frogmore here and Miss Hill would in any case be best.”

Letitia repeated “Lady Frogmore” unconsciously under her breath. It was not of Mary she was thinking. It was of the next bearer of that title, the woman towards whom the coronet was floating ghost-like in a sort of trail of cloud.

“I can’t believe,” said the doctor sharply, “that Lady Frogmore will be so indifferent as is said to the condition of her son.”

Letitia went to her writing table when he was gone with a strange buoyancy. She had not written any letters for some time, but there was a sort of exultation in her now as if the end of her suspense was near. John came in when she had seated herself and begun her letter. He had missed the doctor and was anxious to hear what he had said. There was something in his wife’s aspect which startled him. “The boy is better?” he exclaimed. He gave her in the impulse of the moment a credit which she did not deserve.

“Is he?” cried Letitia, turning round upon her chair with all the color going out of her face. She added tremblingly, shrinking from her husband’s eye, “Do you mean that there is a change?”

“I thought so,” he said gravely, “from the relieved look in your face.”

They contemplated each other for a moment in silence, John with pain and distress, she shrinking a little from his eye. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said; “though I might be relieved to think that the poor child will not suffer much longer. I am to write to his mother, the doctor says.”

“To write to his mother! Then he has given up all hope?”

Letitia did not trust herself to speak, but she nodded her head in assent.

“Poor boy, poor boy!” cried John; “and poor Mary,” he added after a moment, with a broken voice.

“It will be nothing to her,” said Mrs. Parke briefly.

“God knows! it may rouse her to understand what she’s losing: the finest, promising boy, the most generous and patient——”

“Oh, John, I cannot put up with you!” cried Letitia, wild with agitation and excitement. “The one creature that stood between your son and his birthright—between you and everything you have looked for all your life.”

John Parke walked about the room in an agitation which was not simple as his emotions generally were. His heart was wrung for the patient boy who had grown up under his eye—but perhaps to forget all that this boy’s death would bring him was impossible. He stamped his foot on the ground as if to crush those horrible thoughts that would arise. “If I could buy little Mar’s life with the sacrifice of everything!” he said, with an almost hysterical break in his voice——

“It is easy saying so,” she said; “but for my part Duke is more to me than Mar!”

CHAPTER XL.

“I know, I know,” said the man of business, “that’s how one feels. But you can’t, of course. It’s far beyond your hands. And if you throw back your thoughts, it was a great disappointment when this poor boy was born. I felt it for one. I felt for you and Mrs. Parke deeply. It couldn’t have been expected of a man like your brother, an old man who had never thought of marrying. It was a cruel deception. I can suppose that the poor boy had very engaging qualities, but it seemed a cruel business at the time——”

“It did, it did,” said John. “My wife felt it very much. It was she who brought Mary, the present Lady Frogmore, into the family so to speak—and she did feel it perhaps more than she ought.”

“Not more,” said Mr. Blotting; “it was very natural, I’m sure. Well, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and you will at least get back your rights. What will you do about those houses when they fall in, Parke? Of course you can always command my best advice, but it will make a great difference when I have no authority in the matter, and you are acting altogether for yourself——”

“Don’t speak of it, Blotting. I can’t enter on such a question. So long as there is life there is hope.”

But John Parke would have been more than man if he had not allowed a thought or two to surprise him in this kind. He hated himself, but he could not help it: that all this would be his, absolutely his, which he had been managing for another; that he should be able to act independently, to think of the children’s interests without any responsibility or restraint was a wonderful thought. Poor little Mar! If he could redeem his young life by any sacrifice! But he could not do that. Not all the lands attached to the Frogmore peerage, or all belonging to the British crown, could have any effect upon the disposition of the Supreme Disposer of events. John acquiesced in this certainty with a sigh; and then he thought—how could he help thinking?—of what, when he was a free agent, he would do.

The cottages were a very picturesque group of red roofs and antiquated brickwork, situated picturesquely among a clump of trees. It was a thousand pities to pull them down or do anything to them. They were always the first sketch made by every amateur artist who visited the neighborhood, and they figured two or three times in the Academy every year under the titles of “A picturesque nook,” “The homes of our forefathers,” “A hamlet in Blankshire,” etc. A rumor had been spread about in the neighborhood that the cottages of Westgate were to be destroyed, and naturally the cottagers were up in arms. As Mr. Parke and Mr. Blotting were seen approaching, first one head and then another were seen at the doors, and finally a very old woman, bent half-double with rheumatism, and with a head continually moving with the tremble of palsy, came out from one of the houses and confronted the gentlemen. “You ain’t a-going to do away with the cottages; now don’t ye say so,” she said, following them wherever they went, keeping between them and the houses, as though her feeble guardianship could have done anything. “Oh, dearie, dearie! Gentlemen, don’t meddle with the old places; they’ll tumble soon enough of themselves. Oh, don’t ye touch the cottages, gentlemen!” she said.

“If we do anything to the cottages we’ll build you new ones, and far better than these, with every convenience,” said Mr. Blotting, to whom the picturesque told for nothing, and who would rather have had water laid on than all the red roofs in the world.

“We don’t want no conveniences,” said the old woman. “We ’as what suits us, and we don’t want nothin’ more. And what’s it all for, gentlemen, as you’re a-pulling of us down? Because the young lord drinked a lot of water when he didn’t ought to, when he was all in a sweat with his walk? I told ’im not to, and I’d make him a cup of tea. But the young ones they never pay no attention. And oh, my good gentlemen, what’s all the fuss about the young lord? He was one as was born to die, he was. Does any of our lads die of the water, them as drinks it every day? No, nor lasses either. They’s used to it, and they’s strong and well, and plenty of air all their lives, and nothin’ goes amiss with ’m. But yon young lord he’s as weakly as a lamb in February. Just to look at his long thin legs, and his white face, and you’d see there was nought that was solid in him. Don’t you go and judge what’s good for us by ’im. Why, that one would ne’er have had no strength, not if he’d been born and bred at Westgate. It wasn’t in ’im, and if it hadn’t been one thing it would have been another. He was born to die, was that young lord. There was his mother afore him that was druv crazed by that tother lady as made a fuss about the baby coming. Lord, just think what a woman to have a baby as couldn’t give her answer back, but went mad when she was talked to! I was at the Park at the time. I was in the laundry, and there wasn’t one of us servants that didn’t know.”

“What does she mean?” said John.

“Nothing. I should say,” cried Mr. Blotting. “Come, old lady, you’ve given no reason why we shouldn’t pull down your old rookeries that are full of damp and dirt and the rot and mildew. Why, it would be far more comfortable for yourselves. You would be ten times better.”

“Dirt yourself, mister,” cried the old woman in high indignation, “unless it’s Sally Brown’s, the woman at the corner, as isn’t true Westgate, there ain’t no dirt more than’s natural. And as for the young lord, you was always told as you’d never rare him. And no more you haven’t, and as for it’s being our well, as we drinks every day, it’s none of our well. And you just let us alone, mister!” She turned instinctively to Mr. Blotting, as to the inferior person of the two, although, old and nearly blind, she did not recognize John.

“What’s that story about the lady,” he said.

The old woman glared at him with her bleared eyes. “You just let our cottages alone, young gentleman,” she said.

“It’s not so easy as you think to mend matters,” said Mr. Blotting. “I could have told you that. You’d better build your new cottages first, and turn them into them before you pull down the old huts.”

“And let them die of typhoid in the meantime, like my poor boy.”

“Well, if they will, they will—and it’s not you nor me that will stop them,” said Blotting, who in the way of tenants great and small was no optimist. “They don’t care for your conveniences or for what means health to others—but if there’s any money going they would like their share of that.”

John had tossed half-a-crown into the old woman’s hand, who caught it with marvellous cleverness considering her bad sight and doubled-up figure, and he had not patience or tranquillity to do more. “We can send the surveyor,” he said, “for see, I can’t be long absent without thinking something must have happened while I’ve been away. Let’s go home.”

Letitia wrote her letter, not to Mary but Agnes—though she had a much stronger aversion to Agnes than to her sister. It was short, guarded, telling merely the fact of Mar’s illness, that it was very serious, that he was attended by two trained hospital nurses and under the special care of Dr. Barker, and that everything was done that could be done for him. She added no invitation. “The doctor wishes me to write,” she said, “as he thinks it very serious—and if anything further happens I will let you know. Of course you will use your discretion as to whether you communicate this to Mary or not. Probably she will not mind much—which will save her a great deal of grief, poor soul, in case things should turn out badly. He seems to have caught this fever the day you went away in such a hurry. He deserted us all and strolled off by himself into the park, and wore himself out. You will know best whether you said anything to the boy to upset him. He stopped tired at the houses at the Westgate, and asked for some water which was given him from their well. Dr. Barker says this is quite enough to account for it. It is a relief to me amidst all our trouble that he did not get it from anything in my house.” And she ended by repeating her promise to write again if there was “any change.” Letitia felt that she could now say “my house” without hesitation. It was as good as her house now—her great restlessness was calmed down. She went on and wrote a number of letters telling the sad circumstances to her habitual correspondents, whom she informed that her poor young nephew Lord Frogmore was lying dying, with a great deal of emotion. She wrote very affectionately of Mar. It was easy now to say that he was a dear boy, though always very delicate, never able to do the things that the other boys did. “But he has twined himself very much round all our hearts,” wrote Letitia, “and I don’t know how to console the children who adore him.” She could say this without anger or any vivid feeling in the certainty that Mar was going to die. For the first time since she had known she completely approved of Mar. It was a sad thing, no doubt, but it was for the best. He never could have been able to enjoy life—the best that could have been looked for for him would have been an invalid existence, never to be depended upon: and he was such a good boy, so well prepared, looking forward to his release with such resignation and piety. Letitia almost made herself cry, she gave such a touching account of Mar. When she completed those letters she felt more calm than she had done for many a day. The feeling of suspense was gone. The doctor she felt assured would never have said so much if there had been any hope left. And now she could permit herself to entertain these thoughts which had visited her at intervals for years, and which she had not permitted to dwell in her mind, thoughts captivating and attractive, of all the changes she would make and all the things she would do when she came into her kingdom. There were certain improvements to be made in this very house which she had always wanted, which she decided upon the very first time she ever came to the Park, while old Frogmore was still master of all. She had said to John on that occasion (though she was not much more than a bride at the time), “I shall change all the east wing, and turn the library into a second drawing-room when we are here.” John had bidden her hold her tongue, and asked how she knew they would ever be there? Frogmore, who was so strong, would probably outlive him, John said. But Mrs. John was sure that she knew better. And now how much had happened! It had seemed all to float from them and become impossible, and then again it had returned again to possibility, and now it was nearly come to pass. Very nearly! It was only a question of time now. Ten days or so and everything would be settled—at the furthest; if it was possible that he could hold out so long. She indulged herself by thinking it all out how she could make those alterations. Many a time had the vision drifted across her eyes, but she never allowed herself to caress and indulge that vision. She thought not only of the alterations, but of a thousand things beside. The position would be so different. No critical observers to remark on what she did; it would be her own to do what she pleased. No narrowness of money to prevent this and that, to drive her into half measures and improvements incomplete. What she did she could do with confidence, knowing that when John’s time was over (Letitia did not think that her own time might be over), her son would come after him. Everything would become legitimate and natural from the moment that this poor boy was mercifully removed to a better world. It would be better, far better for him: for he never could have had but a wretched invalid life in this world. And for everybody else how much better. The children would all have their rights—the privileges which Mary Hill had taken from them when she married old Frogmore. To have an Honorable to their name would be an advantage even for the girls. And their way of life would be so changed. Letitia went about the house lightly with a changed countenance. Her suspense seemed over. It was not that the doctor had said anything more than he had said over and over again; but she took it in a different way. Her mind was at rest. She spoke quietly to the people whom she saw of the great sorrow that was hanging over the house. There was no doubt, and no pretence at any hope in her tones. Her confidence was extraordinary, as had been the rage of her suspense a little time before. She allowed herself to talk to John of the things that would have to be done, and he did not stop her. He said nothing himself, but he did not refuse to listen to her. Her certainty as to their changed positions impressed her husband with a sensation of certainty too. She had always been in the right, and there seemed no reason for doubting her now. The conviction was wrought in John’s mind with a real sorrow for the dying boy. Poor Mar! To purchase advantage by the sacrifice of that innocent life was bitter to John, he said to himself; and if by any effort of his he could save the poor child’s life—but what could his efforts do when the doctors had given him up? And no doubt Letitia was right, and it became them to realize their position. He allowed himself to think of the alterations too.

And meantime Mar lay in a strange confusion, his faculties all dulled with his fever, the burning hours going over him, so that he knew not night from day, with kind hands ministering to him—but only the hands of strangers—and the minds of all about him gradually turning to a consideration of the life and the world beyond, in which he should have no part. There he lay, always patient, smiling still when he was roused from his stupor, drifting on to the end.

CHAPTER XLI.

“Dear Mary,” said Agnes, whose nerves were fretted and her temper overcast, so that she could not take this unreasonable satisfaction with the calm she usually showed. “You are safe enough anywhere. Who would interfere with you? England is not like a wild country where people are in danger when they move.” Agnes had not been able to show her usual tolerance during this day. It had been very harassing and disagreeable to her, and the very fact of making all things easy for Mary, so that there should be nothing to distract her, reacted upon her guardian, and gave Agnes much more annoyance and trouble than an ordinary traveller. And she had hoped to spend so much of this day with Mar, finding her way again into his confidence, drawing back to her tender bosom the child to whom she had been a mother. Poor Agnes! she had looked forward to it so long, and now it had come to so sudden an end—all for nothing, she said to herself, in her weariness and discouragement; for the hope that had sustained her of a revolution in Mary’s shadowed intelligence seemed to float away in the childish content with which she contemplated the external comforts of home. Agnes knew, too, from the glances thrown at her in passing, that she would have a sullen household to manage—for to look for a week of ease and relaxation in the absence of “the family,” and then to have their capricious mistresses return upon their hands in a day, was too much for the flesh and blood of a house full of English servants. It was not wonderful if Miss Hill, deprived of her holiday too, and accustomed to stand between her sister and all annoyances, should lose heart a little at the end of this weary day.

“I shall never leave home again,” said Mary in her gentle voice. “I am not fit to leave home. Everything seems right now that we are back. Even my dear old lord looks at me as if he were better pleased.”

“It does not seem so to me,” said Agnes. “I know that he would have wished you to stay.”

Lady Frogmore looked up at her sister with a mild surprise. “Do not scold me,” she said. “I would have done it if I could. For you, dear, if not for anything else. And to please poor Letitia——”

“Oh Mary, Letitia!”

“You are very hard upon her,” said Mary. “She is like me, she has been disappointed. She has not had what she might have expected. Oh, don’t ask me how, for it turns me all wrong. I have never understood it, and I never shall understand it. Keep me away from them, Agnes. Keep me away from them. Don’t make me think and think. My head turns round, but I never get any clearer. Oh, don’t ask me to go there again.”

She put her hands together like a child, and turned her mild eyes to her sister’s with more than a child’s passion of entreaty in them. How hard it is to fathom the mysteries of a mind thus veiled by heavy misadventure and injury, cut off in fact from the record of its own life! Mary had been roused to think, she had been startled out of her calm, but all fruitlessly, only enough to make her brain swim, and fill her being with confusion and mental pain. She clung to the quiet which was in her secluded home. She felt when she entered it again as if she had escaped from all that could shake and startle her. The strange commotion that had arisen within her when Mar rose in the rustic assembly, when he spoke with a voice which was familiar, yet unfamiliar, full of echoes of dead voices, and which struck to her very heart, she knew not how, had been like a terrible storm to Mary. She could not find her way among the vague thinkings that were all stirred up within her—broken recollections, suggestions, an indistinct new world which was at the same time old. A little more and she might have caught the clue, found the key, touched the spring that would bring light upon the darkness. But she was not capable of the effort, and the stir of the roused thoughts, like the wings of a crowd of frightened birds disturbed by a strange light, had deafened and dazed her. “Don’t make me think and think:” it was the most pathetic appeal of weakness.

Agnes could not resist that tremulous call. She went to her sister and kissed her tenderly. “I will not trouble you more. I will never trouble you more,” she said with tears. It seemed to be giving up Mar’s cause—but Mar was young and had all the world before him. Even if it never came to him, that recognition from his mother, which the boy who did not know his mother could have at the most but a visionary desire for—it could not harm him much; it would interfere with none of his rights nor with his personal happiness. But poor Mary’s calm and subdued life might be shattered if she were pushed too far. The delusions in which she lived, which sufficed for her, might be destroyed—her quiet banished without any greater good being attained. Agnes gave up a cherished hope when she gave her sister that kiss. She would disturb her no more. Better that she should live and die in this seclusion that suited her, and please herself with a number of innocent things, and do her gentle charities, and smile and be happy in her own subdued way, than forced to search again in the dimness of her confused being, and to wreck her peace—probably for nothing. Agnes gave up her hopes as she yielded in the weariness of that summer evening. She knew as little that events were occurring that very day which might make it entirely unimportant whether Mary ever recovered her complete understanding or not, as she did that a vague light had already been established in Mary’s confused mind, which would not be quenched again. She gave up consciously all attempts to lead that sealed mind to clearer understanding, and doing so with a pang of resignation, seemed to bury for herself all the brighter hopes that had still survived within her—hopes which had supported her through many a troubled and monotonous year.

The Dower House was at the other side of the county, as has been said, and further off from the Park than if it had been twice as far in a more direct way. It stood on the corner of a little property, one of the portions of the estate which had been longest in the hands of the family, six or seven miles from the nearest railway station, with nothing more important than a large village near. The chief society which the two ladies had was in this village, about the outskirts of which were a few “good houses,”—respectable, solid dwellings, with “grounds,” not sufficiently dignified to be country places, but superior to the ordinary villa or village mansion—where there lived a few retired people, a soldier or two, Indian officials on pensions, and such like, who, with the addition of the clergy and the doctor, formed the highest classes of Doveton. Lady Frogmore was much thought of in this little society. Her story, which everyone knew more or less, but about which there was always a considerable mystery, her gentleness and kindness, and not least her rank, made her always interesting to her neighbors, and notwithstanding her own complete retirement, their little neighborly tea parties and garden parties were not disagreeable to Mary. She would go nowhere in the evening, but to sit for an hour in a neighbor’s garden and see the young people amuse themselves and listen to the talk of the elders—which was of a calm description, not exciting, and in which it was very unlikely that there could arise any question likely to touch her too keenly—was pleasant enough.

For some weeks after her return home she would go nowhere, and her absence made a blank to the good people about, who liked to put Lady Frogmore’s name in their list of guests and quote the very simple things that Mary had said; but as it happened, about the time when Letitia had made up her mind with certainty as to what was going to take place, and acting under the doctor’s order had sent a letter to warn Mar’s relations of the state in which he lay, Lady Frogmore and Miss Hill, much entreated, had consented to be present at a garden party at General Forsyth’s, who had the nearest house to theirs. They were able to walk over, as it was near, and the general’s children had grown up since Lady Frogmore came to the Dower House, and were supposed to be favorites of the ever kind but often shrinking woman, who smiled tenderly upon them but avoided and evaded, no one knew why, all near approach.

It was one of the scenes so familiar now in English country life. A pretty scene enough if too common to be notable. Young women and young men in their flower of youth and spirit, not as in the old fashion, too busy even for flirtation, contending in the lists of tennis, a little flushed, a little careless with exercise and the struggle for the mastery—talking as well as playing the game; while the fathers and mothers sat or strolled about, half watching, more than half occupied with their own discussions. Mary was received with open arms, placed in the best place, surrounded by a crowd of anxious courtiers who asked to be allowed to bring her tea or ice or claret cup, or anything that in such circumstances a lady could desire. Miss Hill was not so popular, for one thing because she was not Lady Frogmore, but also because Agnes was not so “sweet” as her poor sister, and with her pre-occupied mind and many cares responded less graciously to the compliments addressed to her. Miss Hill was allowed to settle herself where she pleased, and this was easily discovered by one of the neighboring clergy, who came up to her with an air of special cordiality, and said as he shook hands, “I am delighted to see you here. It shows how little truth there is in the rumors that one hears about young Lord Frogmore.”

“About Frogmore!” cried Agnes—she had not been listening very closely until that name suddenly brought the blood to her face. “What do you know about Frogmore?”

The clergyman, surprised by her surprise, hesitated a little, but finally informed her that he had been lately at Ridding, which was the county town, and there he had heard a very alarming account—that Lord Frogmore was down with fever of the worst kind, caught during a visit to some old cottages which had been allowed to get into a dreadful state of neglect on his property, and that his life was despaired of. Dr. Barker was in constant attendance upon him, it was said, and everyone knew Dr. Barker was too busy a man to make too much of a trifling illness. “I am only telling you what I heard,” said the rector, “for of course you must know better, and it was, I confess, a great relief to my mind to see you. If he were really so ill you would not have been here——”

“I am afraid,” said Agnes, “that is not so true as it appears. We keep up but very little correspondence. All the same,” she cried to herself, rather than to her companion, “Letitia must have written, surely she must have written if Mar had been very ill. He is always delicate,” she said.

“So I have heard.”

“And you are sure it was more than that—you are sure there was something definite talked of—a fever? Oh,” cried Agnes, “for the love of heaven tell me everything you know.”

“I have told you everything I know, dear Miss Hill. I am very, very sorry to have made you so anxious. All that must have been an exaggeration at least. You must have heard.”

“Letitia could not—she could not—oh, even she could not,” cried Agnes, with great agitation; “and yet who can tell? She might say what was the use? Oh, forgive me. What you have said has made me very anxious. Typhoid fever has a horrible sound. It takes the courage out of one’s heart.”

“What I heard must have been an exaggeration,” said the clergyman. “I wish I had not told you. People are so fond of adding a little to a piece of news. Anything to make a sensation. I daresay it is only a common cold or something unimportant. You will not tell Lady Frogmore?”

“Will you see if our carriage is there?” Agnes said.

She felt as if she were tottering as she walked. She could not keep on her feet. Anxiety had seized upon her like a vulture, placing all its claws in her flesh. She sat down on the nearest vacant chair, where she was exposed to the conversation of another guest, a lady who did not know many people, and who accordingly flung herself upon the person who seemed to have taken that seat out of kind consideration to make the solitary lady talk. But Agnes was beyond those managements of civility which she would have adopted in another case. When she had recovered a little, without observing that she was being talked to, thinking over this dreadful piece of information did not make it less but more grave. Mar had not written to her, which already had made her vaguely anxious. And who in that house would think of it? Who would take the trouble? Agnes had not the habit of those modern ways to which so many of us fly in a moment of anxiety. She did not think of the telegraph. She turned over in her distressed mind many things that she would do, but not that. She would write to Dr. Barker—she would go to him, or to the Park, where at least a servant would tell her the truth. But it was already evening, and how could she go so late? and how could she live through the dreadful night without knowing? and how could she disentangle Mary from those smiling groups, and persuade her to come home and explain to her what she wanted—what she must do? The sudden alarm without warning, without preparation—the wild, sudden panic and horror, like the shadow of death descending in a moment over her—took from her all power of thought. When at last she was able to reach the spot where Mary sat, it was almost impossible to get her attention. Lady Frogmore was listening patiently to her neighbors, with all their little stories of the parish and village. She said little herself. That was one reason why they liked her so. She listened to everybody except to Agnes, who had at last got to the back of her chair, and who was too much herself—the other half of herself—to call her exquisite politeness forth.

“Mary, the carriage is here, and it is getting late.”

Mary gave her sister a little nod and sat still, listening to Mrs. Brotherton’s account of the measles, with which all her children had been “down.”

“Mary, couldn’t you come away now? The Howards have gone away already, and the Thomsons. And the grass is damp, and the dew beginning to fall.”

“Presently,” she said, with another look and nod. And now someone else had got possession of her ear.

Agnes went on whispering entreaties; but how was Mary to know there was any urgency in them more than on any other afternoon? She cried at last, in desperation—

“I am ill—I am feeling very ill. For God’s sake, Mary, come away.”

Lady Frogmore only waited to hear the last of what the vicar’s wife was saying, and then she rose hastily and drew Agnes’ arm into her own.

“My dear,” she said, “why did you not tell me you had a headache before?”

CHAPTER XLII.

It was a long time before Agnes could face the light and her sister’s tranquil looks. She went to her room and fell on her knees and prayed with that passionate remonstrance and appeal, and almost reproach, with which we fly to God when He seems about to cut off from us the thing we hold most dear—pleading, putting forth every argument, reasoning with the Supreme Disposer of events, arguing and explaining to Him how it could not, must not be—as we all do, when prayer, which is so often a mere formality, becomes the outcry of mortal disquietude. The tears which she shed, the struggle which she went through, exhausted her so, that for the moment her misery was weakened with her strength. Mary, waiting tranquilly for her downstairs, believed that Agnes had lain down a little, her head being so bad, and approved it as the wisest thing to do. “Don’t disturb Miss Hill, she has a bad headache,” she said. And so Agnes was left alone to have her struggle out.

“Are you better, dear?” said Mary, in her quiet voice, when her sister came in, in the twilight, just before dinner. Agnes had changed her dress as usual, and in the dim light it was impossible to see how pale she was, and the signs of trouble in her face.

“I have news from Letitia,” said Agnes, “bad news—they have illness at the Park. I think I will go to-morrow, if you can spare me, Mary, and see for myself.”

“At the Park?” Lady Frogmore paused with nervous questions on her lips—Was it Duke? Was it anything infectious? Was it——? She paused, and instinct taught her that her sister’s desire to go and see for herself could mean only one thing. The boy—— She never to herself called him anything but the boy, and never thought of him—which she did seldom and unwillingly, never when she could help it—without a strange tremor and sinking at her heart.

“Is it——?” she said, but she could not put even that formula or ask, is it he? “Is it—serious?” she added in a very low voice.

“I think she thinks he is dying—and she wants no one to come—he has two nurses—and she says she will write if anything happens. If anything happens! Oh, my God, my boy! with no one near him that cares for him. I must go to-morrow, Mary.”

Lady Frogmore patted her sister’s shoulder with her hand. Her own child! and yet it was for Agnes that she felt—for her great trouble. “Yes,” she said, “you must go,” with a strange piteous tone which her sister did not understand, and indeed in the throng of her own emotions did not perceive.

“She never says a word of sorrow or regret. She is glad, that dreadful woman! Now,” cried Agnes, “it will be all hers, she thinks—there will be no one in her way.”

“In her way!” Mary said like an echo. They could not see each other’s faces. “Ah, that was always what I wished,” she said in a subdued tone.

Agnes seized her sister by the shoulders with a grasp which was almost fierce. “You shall not now,” she cried, “you shall not now! you shall think of him for once—not Letitia, but good Frogmore’s son—dear Frogmore’s son. Oh, my boy, my boy!”

She let her sister go, and fell back covering her face with her hands. And Mary sank trembling into her chair. But she made no remonstrance or reply. She did not say anything but cried a little quietly under the cover of the evening. She was moved, if with nothing else, at least with the profound emotion of her companion. That Agnes should calm herself after this outburst and beg Mary’s pardon humbly, and do all that in her lay to appear cheerful for the rest of the evening, it is almost unnecessary to say. She was filled with compunction and tenderness towards the unfortunate mother who knew nothing of maternity. Why should she try to excite and arouse Mary now? Arouse her only to bereavement, to know the misery of loss? Oh, no, no! Agnes said to herself. If he must die, let not the light of life go out for Mary too; it was enough that, for herself, that bitter anguish must be.

She started very early in the morning, and arrived at the Park while still it was high day. Letitia was out. Mrs. Parke had given up her feverish watch since that day when the doctor had bidden her write to the boy’s mother. She had discovered that her health was suffering from confinement, and that a little air and change of scene was necessary, as there was really no need for her and she could do nothing for Mar. She drove about with an eager eye upon the property, observing and deciding what must be done, when all was over, when everything was in their own hands. She went to Westgate, and planned where the new cottages were to be. “Your father has been tied down in every way,” she said to Letty; “he has not been able to carry out his own plans. But now, alas, in all probability that period is over, and he will be able to act for himself——”

“Oh, mamma, what do you mean?” Letty had cried.

“It is very easy to tell what I mean: poor Mar—though it is dreadful to think of it—it will make a wonderful difference to your father, Letty, when the poor boy is mercifully released——”

“Do you mean,” cried Letty, her eyes full of tears and horror, “when Mar, dear Mar, dies——? Is that the dreadful, dreadful thing that you mean, mamma?”

“My saying it will not make him die a moment sooner, but we must be prepared. That is what is coming, alas! However grieved we may be, that is no reason for shutting our eyes.”

“Mamma! do you think it? Do you really believe it? I know he is very ill—but there is a long way between that and—dying. Oh,” said Letty, with a shudder, “I cannot, cannot bear it. I will not think it, I will not believe it. What is the good of doctors and nurses, and of all the new things that have been found out, if Mar must die.”

Dreadful question which we have all asked! With neglect and ignorance every terrible loss is alas! possible—but with all that science and all that care can do, with doctors that discover new methods every day, and nursing that never rests, how is it that still they die? Letty had never faced this question before in her life. She sat by the side of her mother, whose mind was tuned to so different a mood, who was calculating in the fullest impulse of new life and activity what she was going to do—and sobbed out her youthful soul at the first sight of that inevitable fate that kings as well as beggars must pass and cannot escape.

Agnes got out of her humble cab from the station in the middle of the avenue, and walked the rest of the way to the house. Now that she was so near she pushed off the moment of certainty with the instinct of anxiety. The windows were all open, he was living at least, there was still hope. And even that was a relief. In the hall she found the daily bulletin placed there for inquirers. “No change; strength fairly maintained,” which gave her another shock of acute consolation, if such words can be used. “But I must see him. You know me. I am Lord Frogmore’s aunt,” she cried. “No, I cannot wait till Mrs. Parke comes in. I must see him. I must see him.” The footman called the butler, who did not know how to stop this impetuous visitor; but before he had appeared Agnes had flown upstairs, feeling a freedom in the absence of Letitia which increased the sense of relief. The nurse came to the door of Mar’s room, with her fingers to her lips, as she heard the hasty footstep. It was the cheerful nurse, the optimist, who thought that young patients recover from everything. She perceived in a moment that this was no formal inquiry, and hastened to say that the patient was “no worse.” “You may think that’s not much, but it’s a great deal,” she added, coming out into the outer room.