Julius did see a flushed sleeping face that did not waken at his entrance; and as his wife settled herself for her watch, he felt as if he could not leave her after such a day as she had had, but an indefinable apprehension made him ask whether she would spare him to run up to the Hall to see his mother and ask after Raymond, whose looks had haunted him all day.  She saw he would not rest otherwise, and did not show how unwilling was her consent, for though she knew little, her mind misgave her.

He made his way into the Hall by the back door, and found his mother still in the drawing-room, and Raymond dozing in the large arm-chair by the fire.  Mrs. Poynsett gave a warning look as Julius bent over her, but Raymond only opened his eyes with a dreamy gaze, without speaking.  “Why, mother, where are the rest?”

“Poor Frank—­I hope it is only the shock and fatigue; but Dr. Worth wished him to be kept as quiet as possible.  He can’t bear to see any one in the room, so that good Anne said she would sit in Charlie’s room close by.”

“Then he is really ill?” said Julius.

“He nearly fainted after walking over to Sirenwood in vain.  I don’t understand it.  There’s something very wrong there, which seems perfectly to have crushed him.”

“I’ll go up and see him,” said Julius.  “You both of you look as if you ought to be in bed.  How is Cecil, Raymond?”

“Quite knocked up,” he sleepily answered.  “Here’s Susan, mother.”

Susan must have been waiting till she heard voices to carry off her mistress.  Raymond pushed her chair into her room, bent over her with extra tenderness, bade her good night; and when Julius had done the same they stood by the drawing-room fire together.

“I’ve been trying to write that letter, Julius,” said Raymond, “but I never was so sleepy in my life, and I can’t get on with it.”

“What letter?”

“That letter.  About the races.”

“Oh!  That seems long ago!”

“So it does,” said Raymond, in the same dreamy manner, as if trying to shake something off.  “Some years, isn’t it?  I wanted it done, somehow.  I would sit down to it now, only I have fallen asleep a dozen times over it already.”

“Not very good for composition,” said Julius, alarmed by something indefinable in his brother’s look, and by his manner of insisting on what was by no means urgent.  “Come, put it out of your head, and go to bed.”

“How did you find the boy Terry?” asked Raymond, again as if in his sleep.

“I scarcely saw him.  He was asleep.”

“And Worth calls it—?”

“The same fever as in Water Lane.”

“I thought so.  We are in for it,” said Raymond, now quite awake.  “He did not choose to say so to my mother, but I gathered it from his orders.”

“But Frank only came down yesterday.”

“Frank was knocked down and predisposed by the treatment he met with, poor boy.  They say he drank quarts of iced things at the dinner and ball, and ate nothing.  This may be only the effect of the shock, but his head is burning, and there is a disposition to wander.  However, he has had his coup de grace, and that may account for it.  It is Cecil.”