“You must go now, my dear fellow.  It is now half-past ten, and I will be at Pennington’s at one o’clock, to see how he goes on; so you need not go there.  And, meanwhile, I must take a little medicine.”

“Major, you are not going to doctor yourself?” cried Tom.

“There is a certain medicine called prayer, Mr. Thurnall—­an old specific for the heart-ache, as you will find one day—­which I have been neglecting much of late, and which I must return to in earnest before midnight.  Good-bye, God bless and keep you!” And the Major retired to his bed-room, and did not stir off his knees for two full hours.  After which he went to Pennington’s, and thence somewhere else; and Tom met him at four o’clock that morning musing amid unspeakable horrors, quiet, genial, almost cheerful.

“You are a man,” said Tom to himself; “and I fancy at times something more than a man; more than me at least.”

Tom was right in his fear that after excitement would come collapse; but wrong as to the person to whom it would come.  When he arrived at the surgery door, Headley stood waiting for him.

“Anything fresh?  Have you seen the Heales?”

“I have been praying with them.  Don’t be frightened.  I am not likely to forget the lesson of this afternoon.”

“Then go to bed.  It is full twelve o’clock.”

“Not yet, I fear.  I want you to see old Willis.  All is not right.”

“Ah!  I thought the poor dear old man would kill himself.  He has been working too hard, and presuming on his sailor’s power of tumbling in and taking a dog’s nap whenever he chose.”

“I have warned him again and again:  but he was working so magnificently, that one had hardly heart to stop him.  And beside, nothing would part him from his maid.”

“I don’t wonder at that:”  quoth Tom to himself.  “Is she with him?”

“No:  he found himself ill; slipped home on some pretence; and will not hear of our telling her.”

“Noble old fellow!  Caring for every one but himself to the last.”  And they went in.

It was one of those rare cases, fatal, yet merciful withal, in which the poison seems to seize the very centre of the life, and to preclude the chance of lingering torture, by one deadening blow.

The old man lay paralysed, cold, pulseless, but quite collected and cheerful.  Tom looked, inquired, shook his head, and called for a hot bath of salt and water.

“Warmth we must have, somehow.  Anything to keep the fire alight.”

“Why so, sir?” asked the old man “The fire’s been flickering down this many a year.  Why not let it go out quietly, at three-score years and ten?  You’re sure my maid don’t know?”

They put him into his bath, and he revived a little.

“No; I am not going to get well; so don’t you waste your time on me, sirs!  I’m taken while doing my duty, as I hoped to be.  And I’ve lived to see my maid do hers, as I knew she would, when the Lord called on her.  I have,—­but don’t tell her, she’s well employed, and has sorrows enough already, some that you’ll know of some day—­”