The drive to the house lay mainly through a vast park, dotted with stiff and melancholy woods.  The morning was cloudy; even the wild roses in the hedges and the daisies in the grass had neither gayety nor color.  Soon the house appeared—­an immense pile of stone, with a pillared centre, and wings to east and west, built in a hollow, gray and sunless.  The mournful blinds drawn closely down made of it rather a mausoleum for the dead than a home for the living.

At the approach of the carriage, however, doors were thrown open, servants appeared, and on the steps, trembling and heavy-eyed, stood Susan Delafield.

She looked timidly at Julie, and then, as they passed into the great central hall, the two kissed each other with tears.

“He is in his room, waiting for you.  The doctors persuaded him not to come down.  But he is dressed, and reading and writing.  We don’t believe he has slept at all for a week.”

* * * * *

“Through there,” said Susan Delafield, stepping back.  “That is the door.”

[Illustration:  “SHE FOUND HERSELF KNEELING BESIDE HIM”]

Julie softly opened it, and closed it behind her.  Delafield had heard her approach, and was standing by the table, supporting himself upon it.  His aspect filled Julie with horror.  She ran to him and threw her arms round him.  He sank back into his chair, and she found herself kneeling beside him, murmuring to him, while his head rested upon her shoulder.

“Jacob, I am here!  Oh, I ought to have been here all through!  It’s terrible—­terrible!  But, Jacob, you won’t suffer so—­now I’m here—­now we’re together—­now I love you, Jacob?”

Her voice broke in tears.  She put back the hair from his brow, kissing him with a tenderness in which there was a yearning and lovely humility.  Then she drew a little away, waiting for him to speak, in an agony.

But for a time he seemed unable to speak.  He feebly released himself, as though he could not bear the emotion she offered him, and his eyes closed.

“Jacob, come and lie down!” she said, in terror.  “Let me call the doctors.”

He shook his head, and a faint pressure from his hand bade her sit beside him.

“I shall be better soon.  Give me time.  I’ll tell you—­”

Then silence again.  She sat holding his hand, her eyes fixed upon him.  Time passed, she knew not how.  Susan came into the room—­a small sitting-room in the east wing—­to tell her that the neighboring bedroom had been prepared for herself.  Julie only looked up for an instant with a dumb sign of refusal.  A doctor came in, and Delafield made a painful effort to take the few spoonfuls of food and stimulant pressed upon him.  Then he buried his face in the side of the arm-chair.

“Please let us be alone,” he said, with a touch of his old peremptoriness, and both Susan and the doctor obeyed.