the old home which laurence alsager had so long slighted, and to which his heart suddenly turned with a strange wild longing, almost powerful enough, he thought, to annihilate the space between it and redmoor, had seen many generations of alsagers beneath its peaked and gabled roof. the house stood in a fine park, and occupied a commanding situation on the slope of a well-wooded hill. the features of the scenery were such as are familiar in the midland counties: rich and fertile beauty, with uplands ankle-deep in meadow-grass, tall patriarchal trees, which stood in solemn unending conclave, group by group or singly, with benignant outstretched arms, and wide-spread mantle of green and russet; bright shallow streams, flashing under the sunbeams, and rippling darkly in the shade. all the land about the picturesque and irregular old house was laid out, partly by nature and partly by art, on ornamental principles; and away to the right and left stretched a wide expanse of farm-lands, whose aspect suggested a practical knowledge of the science of husbandry, and a satisfactory return in profit. the house was surrounded by a broad stone-terrace, bounded by a low balustrade, and flanked at each of the corners by a large stone-vase containing flowers, which varied with the season, but were never missing from these stately jardinières. these vases were tended, in common with the formal flower-garden and the particular pet parterre which she called "her own," by helen manningtree, the orphan ward of sir peregrine alsager, whom laurence remembered as a quiet pretty little girl, who had been frank and free with him in her childhood, timid and reserved when he had last seen her, just before he had been driven abroad by the furies of disappointment and wounded pride, and whom he was now to meet again, a graceful, gracious, well-disciplined, and attractive woman.

knockholt park was one of those rare places which present a perfect combination of luxury and comfort to the beholder, and impress the latter element of their constitution upon the resident visitor. bien, être seemed to reign there; and the very peacocks which strutted upon the terrace, and tapped at the dining-room window as soon as sir peregrine had taken his accustomed seat at the head of the long table, seemed less restless in their vanity and brighter in their plumage than their confrères of the neighbouring gentlemen's seats. the brute creation had fine times of it at knockholt park, except, of course, such of their number as came under the denomination of vermin; and those sir peregrine was too good a farmer, to say nothing of his being too enthusiastic a sportsman, to spare. horses were in good quarters in the stables and the paddocks of knockholt park; and well-to-do dogs were to be found everywhere, the kennel and the dining-room included. sir peregrine had the liking for animals to be observed in all kindly natures which are solitary without being studious, and which affords to such natures a subtle pleasure, a sympathy which does not jar with their pride, a companionship which does not infringe upon their exclusiveness.

sir peregrine alsager was essentially a solitary man, though he hunted pretty regularly and shot a little; though he fulfilled the duties of county hospitality with resignation, which county perceptions mistook for alacrity; and though he associated as much as most resident country gentlemen with the inmates of his house. these inmates were helen manningtree and her ci-devant governess, mrs. chisholm, a ladylike accomplished person, and a distant relative of sir peregrine, who had offered her a home with him when the charge of helen had devolved upon him, almost simultaneously with the death of mrs. chisholm's husband,--an overworked young curate, who had fallen a victim to an epidemic disease, in consequence of the prevalence of which in the parish his rector had found it necessary to remove himself and his family to a more salubrious climate, but had not found it necessary to procure any assistance for the curate. they were pleasant inmates, but scarcely interesting,--would hardly have been so to a younger man; and there was a certain reserve in sir peregrine's manner, though it never lacked kindness, and was distinguished for its courtesy and consideration, which maintained their relative positions quite unchanged. a young girl would have been an unintelligible creature to sir peregrine, even if she had been his own daughter; and he contented himself with taking care that all helen's personal and intellectual wants were amply supplied, and all her tastes consulted and gratified: he left the reading of the enigma to others, or was content that it should remain unread.

life at knockholt park had rolled on very smoothly on the whole, until the accident which recalled his son to his neglected home had befallen sir peregrine; and if the master of the fine old house and the fine old estate had had a good deal of loneliness, some bitterness, not a little wistful haggard remembrance and yearning regret, a sense of discordance where he longed for harmony, with a disheartening conviction that he had not the faculties requisite for setting it right, and would never find them in this world, among his daily experiences, the decent and decorous mantle of pride had hidden these discrepancies in the general order of things from every perception but his own. if the hale old gentleman, on whom every eye looked with respect, and who had filled his place with honour all the days of his life, had unseen companions in those walks shared visibly by his dog alone; if the handsome stately library where he sat o' nights, and read all that a country gentleman is ever expected to read, was haunted now and then by a shadowy presence, by a beckoning hand; if the gentle whisper of a voice, whose music was heard in its full melody among the angels only, came oftener and more often, as "the tender grace of a day that was dead" receded more and more into the past, and stirred the slow pulses of the old man's heart,--he was all the happier, with such solemn happiness as remembrance and anticipation can confer, and no one was the wiser.

if "county society" in those parts had been brighter as a collective body, or if the individuals who composed it had had clearer notions of military life, and the obligations of a lieutenant-colonel, the long absence of laurence alsager from his father's house might have been made a subject of ill-natured and wondering comment; but the particular county to which knockholt and its master belonged was rather remarkable for obtuseness, and there was a certain something about the old baronet which rendered it impossible to say unpleasant things in his presence, and difficult even to say them in his absence; and so laurence alsager escaped almost scot-free. helen manningtree felt some indignant wonder occasionally at the only son's prolonged absence from his father--indignant, be it observed, on sir peregrine's account, not on her own. helen was very sensible, and as little vain as it was possible for a nice-looking and attractive girl to be, without attaining a painful height of perfection; and so she did not wonder that laurence alsager had not been induced by curiosity to see her--of whom sir peregrine had doubtless frequently spoken to him--to visit his old home. her life had been too simple and well regulated to enable her to comprehend an estrangement between father and son arising from diversity of sentiment alone; but it had also been so devoid of strong affections, of vivid emotions, that she was not likely to regard laurence alsager's conduct from a particularly elevated point of view. it was wrong, she thought, and odd; but if laurence had gone to knockholt at stated periods, and had conformed outwardly to filial conventionalities, helen would have been the last person in the world to perceive that anything was wanting to the strength and sweetness of the relationship between sir peregrine and his only son.

mrs. chisholm-a woman who had known love and bereavement, struggle and rest, but who was childless, and in whom, therefore, that subtlest instinct which gives comprehension to the dullest had never been awakened--felt about it all much as helen did; but she expressed less, and the little she permitted herself to say was cold and vague, coldness and vagueness characterized mrs. chisholm, because sorrow had early chilled her heart, and no one whom she loved had ever addressed himself to the awakening of her intellect. the curate had not had time, poor fellow; he had had too much to do in persuading people to go to church who would not be persuaded; and his sophy had been so pretty in the brief old time, so cheerful, so notable, so lovable and beloved, that it had never occurred to him that her mind might have been a little larger and a little stronger with advantage. the time was brief, and the curate died in the simple old faith, leaving his pretty sophy to outlive him, his love, and her prettiness, but never to outlive his memory, or to cease to glory in that unutterably-precious recollection, that her husband had never found fault with her in his life. on the whole, then, laurence alsager was gently judged and mildly handled by the worthy people who had the best right to criticise his conduct; and perhaps the knowledge that this was the case added keenness to the pang of self-reproach, which made his self-inflicted punishment, with which he read the brief but terrible news flashed to his conscious heart along the marvellous electric wire.

evening had fallen over stream and meadow, over upland and forest, at knockholt. it had come with the restless and depressing influence which contrasts so strangely with the calm and peace it brings to the fulness of life and health, into the lofty and spacious chamber where sir peregrine lay, prostrate under the victorious hand of paralysis. the mysterious influence of serious illness, the shadow of the wings of the angel of death, rested heavily upon the whole of that decorously-ordered house; and the watchers in the chamber of helplessness, it may be of pain,--who can tell? who can interpret the enforced stillness, the inexorable dumbness of that dread disease?--succumbed to its gloom. mrs. chisholm and helen were there, not, indeed, close by the bed, not watching eagerly the motionless form, but gazing alternately at each other and at the doctor, who kept a vigilant watch over the patient. this watch had, if possible, increased in intensity since sunset, at which time dr. galton had perceived a change, visible at first to the eye of science alone. the dreadful immobility had certainly relaxed; the rigidity of the features, blended with an indescribable but wofully-perceptible distortion of the habitual expression, had softened; the plum-like blueness of the lips had faded to a hue less startlingly contrasted with that of the shrunken and ashy features.

"he will recover from this attack, i hope--i think," said the doctor in answer to a mute question which he read in helen's eyes, as he stood upright after a long and close investigation of the patient. "yes, he will outlive this. i wish colonel alsager were here."

"we may expect him very soon," mrs. chisholm said; "he would start immediately of course, and we know the telegraph-message would reach him in time for him to catch the up-train."

as she spoke, wheels were heard on the distant carriage-drive. sir peregrine's room was on the north side, that farthest from the approach; and immediately afterwards a servant gently opened the door--ah, with what needless caution!--and told mrs. chisholm that the colonel had arrived, and desired to see her. there was more awkwardness than agitation in mrs. chisholm's manner as she hurriedly rose to comply with this request, but was interrupted by dr. galton, who said:

"no, no, my dear madam,--i had better see him myself; i can make him understand the necessary care and caution better than you can."

mrs. chisholm returned to her seat in silent acquiescence; and for the ensuing half-hour she and helen sat sadly looking at the helpless form upon the bed, and occasionally whispering to one another their several impressions of how laurence alsager "would bear it."

what laurence alsager had to bear, and how he bore it, was not for any one to see. he held himself aloof even from the gentle scrutiny he had so little reason to dread. in half-an-hour dr. galton reentered sir peregrine's room, looking very grave, and requested mrs. chisholm and helen to withdraw.

"i am going to let colonel alsager see his father," he said; "and i think there should be no one else by. we can never know exactly how much or how little the patient feels, or knows, or is affected in eases like these; but one at a time is an admirable rule."

"he will find us in the long drawing-room when he wishes to see us," said mrs. chisholm; and then she and helen left the room, and went in silence along the wide corridor, and down the broad flat staircase of fine white stone, with its narrow strip of velvet-pile carpeting and its heavy, carved balustrade, terminated by a fierce figure in armour holding a glittering spear, with a mimic banderol blazoned with the device of the alsagers. the wide stone hall, at the opposite extremity of which the door of the long drawing-room stood open, the heavy velvet portière withdrawn, was hung with trophies of the chase and of war. tiger-skins, buffalo-horns, the dépouilles of the greater and the lesser animals which man so loves to destroy, adorned its walls, diversified by several handsome specimens of indian arms, and a french helmet, pistol, and sabretache. four splendid wood-carvings, representing such scenes as snyders has painted, were conspicuous among the orthodox ornaments of the hall. they were great favourites with sir peregrine, who had bought them in one of the old belgian cities on the one only occasion when he had visited foreign parts--an awful experience, to which he had been wont to allude with mingled pride and repugnance. helen glanced at them sadly as she crossed the hall; then turned her head carelessly in the direction of the great door, which stood open, and before which a huge black newfoundland lay at full length upon the marble steps. at the same moment the dog, whose name was faust, rose, wagged his tail, twitched his ears, and cantered down the steps, and across the terrace in an oblique direction.

"who is that, helen?" asked mrs. chisholm, as she caught sight of faust's swift-vanishing form. "some one is coming whom the dog knows."

"it is only mr. farleigh," answered helen; but her reply must have been made quite at random, for she had not advanced another step in the direction of the door, and could not possibly have seen, from her position in the hall, who was approaching the house at that moment.

mrs. chisholm had a natural and spontaneous inclination towards curates. she respected--indeed, she admired all the ranks of the hierarchy and all their members, and she never could be induced to regard them as in any way divided in spirit or opinions. they were all sacred creatures in her eves, from the most sucking of curates to the most soapy of bishops; but the curates had the pre?minence in the order of this remarkably unworldly woman's estimation. her augustine had been a curate; he might, indeed, have become a bishop in the fulness of time, and supposing the order of merit to have been attended to by the prime minister in posse; but fate had otherwise decreed, and his apotheosis had occurred at the curate-stage of his career. for this perfectly laudable and appreciable reason mrs. chisholm liked the reverend cuthbert farleigh, and would have liked him had he been the silliest, most commonplace, most priggish young parson in existence--had he had weak eyes and a weak mind, low-church opinions, and a talent for playing the flute. but the reverend cuthbert had none of these things. on the contrary, he was a handsome manly young fellow, who looked as if he possessed an intellect and a conscience, and was in the habit of using both; who had a tall well-built figure, fine expressive dark eyes, and an independent, sensible, cheerful manner, which few people could have resisted. helen manningtree had never made any attempt at resisting it. she had known cuthbert farleigh for eighteen months, and she had been in love with him just twelve out of the number. she was not aware of the circumstance at first, for she had had no experience of similar feelings; she had had none of the preliminary feints and make-believes which often precede the great passion of such persons as are calculated to feel a great passion, and the tepid sincerity of such as are not. helen had never experienced a sensation of preference for any one of the limited and not very varied number of young country gentlemen whom she had met since she "came out" (the term had a restricted significance in her case); and when she did experience and avow to herself such a sentiment in the instance of the reverend cuthbert farleigh, she readily accounted for it to herself by impressing on her own memory that, however young he might look and be, he was her spiritual pastor and master--and, of course, that occult influence affected her very deeply--and by making up her mind that he preached beautifully. and cuthbert? what was the young lady with the brown eyes, and the brown curls, and the fresh healthful complexion; the young lady who was not indeed strictly beautiful, nor, perhaps, exactly pretty, but who was so charming, so graceful, so thoroughly well-bred; such an innate lady in thought, word, and deed, in accent, in gesture, in manner;--what was she to him? he had asked himself that same question many a time; he asked it now, as he came up to the open door--rarely shut at knockholt park, save in the rigorous depths of winter--and he came to the conclusion, as he thought of the manifest luxury and elegance in whose enjoyment helen had been reared, and of the probable fortune which she would possess, that he had better postpone answering it until he should have become a bishop.

helen, who did not try to analyze her own perturbations, and was wholly unconscious of cuthbert's, received him with her accustomed gentle sweetness, but with a sedate and mournful gravity adapted to the circumstances. when the ladies had brought their lengthy and minute narrative to a close--a narrative which embraced only the history of twenty-four hours, for cuthbert was a regular and attentive visitor--he inquired about colonel alsager. had he been informed? had he been sent for? had he come?

"yes, to all your questions, mr. farleigh. colonel alsager is now in the house, in sir peregrine's room; but as yet we have not seen him."

the sensitive and expressive face of the curate was clouded by a look of pain and regret. he and colonel alsager had never met; but the young clergyman knew sir peregrine better, perhaps, than any other person knew him, and respected him deeply. he could not regard laurence's conduct so lightly, he could not acquit him as easily, as others did. he blamed him heavily, as he sat and listened to the women's talk; and with the blame keen compassion mingled; for he knew, with the mysterious insight of a sympathetic nature, all that he must suffer in realizing that regret must be in vain, must be wasted now, must be too late.

the occasion was too solemn to admit of so trivial a feeling as curiosity; but had it not been so, that feminine sentiment would undoubtedly have predominated among the emotions with which mrs. chisholm and helen manningtree received colonel alsager, when, after a lengthened interval, he made his appearance in the long drawing-room. as it was, their mutual greetings were kindly but subdued. the presence of illness and danger in the house superseded all minor considerations, and colonel alsager might have been a guest as familiar as he was in reality strange, for all the emotion his presence excited. mrs. chisholm introduced cuthbert farleigh, and added to the usual formula a few words to the effect that he was a favoured guest with sir peregrine, which led alsager to receive the introduction warmly, and to prosecute the acquaintance with zeal. the curate thawed under the influence of the colonel's genial manner,--so warm and attractive, with all its solemn impress of regret, fear, and uncertainty. after a little while the women went away again to resume their dreary watch; and dr. galton came down to make his report, and to join alsager at his late and much-needed dinner. a telegraphic message had been sent to london to seek further medical assistance; but the great man, who could do so little, could not reach knockholt before the morning. in the mean time there was little change in the state of the patient; but dr. galton adhered to the hopeful opinion he had formed at sunset. cuthbert farleigh went away from the park, and sat down to the preparation of his sunday's sermon with a troubled mind. "what a capital good fellow alsager is," he thought, "with all his faults! what a number of questions he asked about her! he takes a great interest in her. well, it would be a very natural and a very nice thing." it is granted, is it not, on all hands, that the abandonment of proper names and the substitution of pronouns--which, whether personal or impersonal, are at all events demonstrative--is a very suspicious circumstance in certain cases?

sir peregrine alsager did not die, as laurence had thought, and dreaded that he was to die, with the silence between them unbroken, the estrangement unremoved. nothing could undo the past, indeed; but the present was given to the father and son; and its preciousness was valued duly by them both. in a few days after laurence's arrival the paralysis loosened its grasp of his father's faculties; and though he still lay in his bed shrunk, shrivelled, and helpless, he could see, and hear, and speak. sometimes his words were a little confused, and a slight but distressing lapse of memory caused him to pause and try painfully first to recall the word he wanted, and next to accomplish its utterance; but gradually this difficulty wore away, and the old man spoke freely, though little. he was greatly changed by his illness--was most pathetically patient; and his face, a little distorted by the shock, and never more to wear the healthy hue of his vigorous age, assumed an expression of tranquil waiting. the supremacy of his will was gone with the practical abolition of his authority. he let it slip unnoticed. he cared little for anything now but the presence of his son and the progress of the mornings and the evenings which were making the week-days of his life, and wearing towards the dawn of the eternal sabbath. he loved to have helen with him, and would regard her with unwonted interest and tenderness,--keenest when she and laurence met beside his couch, and talked together, as they came gradually to do, very often at first for his sake, and afterwards, as he hoped, as he never doubted, for their own. yes, the keen anxiety, the foresight, the intensifying of former mental attributes which characterize some kinds of physical decay in persons of a certain intellectual and moral constitution and calibre, showed themselves strongly in sir peregrine alsager, and centred themselves in his son. he had asked nothing, and had heard little of his wandering and purposeless life; but that little had made the old man--held back now, on the brink of the eternal verity, by no scruples of coldness, of pride, of pique, or of scrupulosity--very anxious that his son should marry, and settle down to live at knockholt park at least a fair proportion of the year. with that considerate, but perhaps, after all, beautiful, simplicity which restores to age the faith of youth, and builds her shrines for all the long-shattered idols, sir peregrine reasoned of his own life and his own experience, and applied his deductions to his son's far different case. he was, however, too wise to put his wishes into words, or even to make them evident without words, to their objects. but there were two persons in the small group who tenanted knockholt park who knew that the dearest wish of sir peregrine's heart, that desire which overpassed the present and projected itself into the inscrutable future, when its fruition might perchance never be known to him, was that laurence alsager, his son, should marry helen manningtree, his ward. the two who had penetrated the inmost feelings of the old man were cuthbert farleigh and mrs. chisholm.

how sped the days with colonel alsager in the old home? heavily, to say the least of it. he had undergone strong excitement of various kinds; and now reaction had set in, with the unspeakable relief of his father's reprieve from immediate death. during his journey from redmoor to knockholt he had been an unresisting prey to bitter and confused regrets; so bitter, they seemed almost like remorse; so unavailing, they touched the confines of despair. the scenes in which he had lately played a part, the problems he had been endeavouring to solve, rushed from his view, and retired to the recesses of his memory,--to come out again, and occupy him more closely, more anxiously than ever, when the cruel grasp of suspense and terror was removed from his heart; when the monotony of the quiet house, and the life regulated by the exigencies of that of an invalid, had fairly settled down upon him; when all the past seemed distant, and all the future had more than the ordinary uncertainty of human existence. there was no estrangement between laurence and his father now; but the son knew that there was no more similarity than before. their relative positions had altered, and with the change old things had passed away. the pale and shrunken old man who lay patiently on his couch beside the large window of the library at knockholt, at which the peacocks had now learned to tap and the dogs to sniff, was not the silent though urbane, the hale and arriéré country gentleman to whom his guardsman's life had been an unattractive mystery, and all his ways distasteful. that guardsman's life, those london ways, the shibboleth of his set, even the distinctive peculiarities of his own individuality, had all been laid aside, almost obliterated, by the dread reality which had drawn so near, and still, as they both knew, was unobtrusively ever nigh at hand. father and son were much together at certain regulated times; and laurence was unfailing in his scrupulous observance of all the wishes, his intuitive perception of all the fancies, of the invalid. still there were many hours of solitude to be got through in every day; and laurence alsager held stricter and truer commune with his own heart, while they passed over the dial, than he had ever been used to hold. the quiet of the house; the seclusion of the park in which he walked and rode; the formal beauty of the garden, where he strolled with helen manningtree, and listened to her enthusiastic expectations of what its appearance would be when the time of flowers should have fully arrived; the regularity of the household; the few and trivial interruptions from without;--all these things had a strong influence on the sensitive temperament of laurence alsager, and gradually isolated him within himself. there was nothing to disturb the retrospective and introspective current of his thoughts; and in those quiet weeks of waiting he learned much of himself, of life, and of truth--knowledge which otherwise might never have come to him. it was not very long before his mind recurred painfully to redmoor and its mistress, whom he had left in a position of difficulty and danger. he remembered the counsel he had given her, and he wondered whether it might avail. he pondered on all the eventualities which the triste sagesse of a man of the world taught him to anticipate, and longed for power to avert them or to alter their character. he learned some wholesome lessons in these vain aspirations, and looked deeper into the stream of life than he had ever looked before.

he looked at lady mitford's position from every point of view; he weighed and measured her trials, and then he began to speculate upon her temptations. all at once it struck him that he had ceased to fear lord dollamore; that that distinguished personage had somehow dropped out of his calculations; that he was occupying himself rather with her sentimental griefs than with the serious danger which he had believed, a little while ago, menaced her reputation and her position. he feared laura hammond, and he ardently desired to penetrate the full meaning of miss gillespie's warning. he perfectly understood the difficulty of conveying to a mind so innocent as that of lady mitford the full force and meaning of the counsel he had given her, the hopelessness of inducing her to arm herself with a woman's legitimate weapon--the strong desire to please,--and getting her to use it against her husband. she did not lack intelligence, but she did not possess tact; and her nature was too refined and straightforward to give her any chance in so unequal a contest as that into which her husband's worthlessness had forced her.

and now another truth came steadily up from the abyss into which alsager was always gazing, and confronted him. that truth was the motive which animated his thoughts and inspired his perceptions; which gave him so clear an insight into lady mitford's position, and enabled him to read her heart with more distinctness than she herself could have interpreted it. one day laurence alsager knew, and acknowledged to himself, what this motive was, whence came this intuition. he loved georgie mitford. yes; the idle speculation, the indignation of a true gentleman at beholding the innocent wronged and the trusting deceived; the loyal instinct of protection; the contemptuous anger which had led him to detest laura hammond and to desire her discomfiture; the tender and true sympathy of a world-worn man with a pure and simple woman, to whom the world and its ways are all unknown and unsuspected; the shrinking from beholding the suffering which experience must inflict,--all these had been evident--they had existed in utter integrity and vitality. alsager had not deceived himself then, neither did he deceive himself now; and though they still existed, they had receded from their prominence,--they did but supplement another, a more powerful, a more vital reality. he loved her--he never doubted the fact, never questioned it more. he loved with a love as much superior to, as much stronger, holier, truer, and more vital than, any love which he had ever before felt or fancied--as his present self-commune was more candid, searching, and complete than any counsel ever previously held in the secret chambers of his brain and heart. he had settled this point with himself, and was moodily pondering on the possible consequences of the fact, and on the alteration in his own position towards lady mitford which it implied, when he received a letter from georgie. it was not the first,--several notes had passed between them in the easy intimacy of their acquaintance; but it was the first since that acquaintance had strengthened into friendship. and now, for him, friendship too had passed away, and in its place stood love--dangerous, delicious, entrancing, bewildering love. so georgie's letter had altogether a different value and significance for him now. this was the letter:

"redmoor, -- march 18--.

"dear colonel alsager,--sir charles received your kind note, but has been too busy to write; so he has asked me to do so, and i comply with very great pleasure. i need hardly say how truly glad we were to hear of the improvement in sir peregrine's state, and how earnestly we hope he may completely rally. all things are going on here much as usual. poor mr. hammond is very ill,--failing rapidly, i am sure; this week he is suffering fearfully from bronchitis. they talked of going away, but that is of course impossible. i am a good deal with him, and i think he likes me. lord dollamore has come back from town, and is staying here,--doing nothing but lounge about and watch everybody. is there any chance that we shall have the pleasure of seeing you again if we are detained here much longer? i hoped charley would have taken me to see my father, who has been ailing this cold spring weather; but i fear the long delay here will prevent that,--he will be impatient to get to town as soon as possible. pray let us hear from you how sir peregrine is. charley is out, but i know i may add his kindest regards to my own.--yours, dear colonel alsager, always sincerely,

"georgina mitford.

"p.s. i have not forgotten your advice for a minute, nor ceased to act upon it, and to thank you for it from my heart. but--it is so difficult to write upon this subject--difficult to me to write on any, for, as you know, i am not clever, unfortunately for me. could you not come?"

laurence read and re-read this simple letter with unspeakable pain and keen irrepressible delight. she trusted him; she thought of him; she wished for his presence! could he not come? she asked. no; he could not. but supposing he could--ought he? well, he was a brave man and a true, and he faced that question also. how he answered it remains to be seen.

the days passed at knockholt park, and resembled each other very closely. laurence saw a good deal of cuthbert farleigh, and liked him much. he wondered a little, after the manner of men, at the content yielded by a life so unlike his own, or any that his fancy had ever painted; but if he and the curate did not sympathize, they coalesced. laurence wrote again to, and heard again from, lady mitford.

there was not much in her letter apart from her kind and sympathizing comments upon his; but he gathered a good deal from the tone which unconsciously pervaded it. he learned that she had not succeeded in breaking up the party at redmoor; that sir charles had invited a fresh relay of county guests; that mr. hammond's health was very precarious; and that georgie had not been gratified in her wish to see her father. the letter made him more uneasy, more sad, by its reticence than by its revelations. if he could but have returned to redmoor!--but it was impossible. if he could have left his father, how was he to have accounted for an uninvited return to sir charles mitford's house? he did not choose, for many reasons, to assume or cultivate such relations with the worthy baronet as going there in an informal manner would imply.

so march and april slipped away, and laurence alsager was still at knockholt, in close attendance upon his father. one day in the last week of april, laurence was returning from a solitary ramble in the park, intending to read to his father for a while, if he should find that sir peregrine (sensibly feebler, and much inclined to slumber through the brightest hours of sunshine) could bear the exertion of listening. as he emerged from the shade of a thick plantation on the north side of the house and approached the terrace, he observed with alarm that several servants were assembled on the steps, and that two came running towards him, with evident signs of agitation and distress. he advanced quickly to meet them, and exclaimed, "is anything wrong? is my father worse?"

"i am sorry to tell you, sir laurence--" began the foremost of the two servants. and so laurence alsager learned that his father had gone to his rest, and that he had come to his kingdom.