Lady Isabel was returning from her accustomed housekeeping morning visit to Mrs. Dixon, when she was startled by the sharp outcry of an electric bell.

“Dick’s room!” she said to herself, beginning to hurry; she hardly knew why.

A housemaid ran down the long passage in front of her, flying to the summons.  Through the open door of the dining-room Lady Isabel saw Christian giving the dogs their breakfast.

“Papa’s bell is ringing, dear,” said Lady Isabel, breathing hard.

“I heard someone go up to his room just now,” said Christian, languidly; “I haven’t seen him this morning; I was in the yard with the dogs—­”

Someone came down the stairs, headlong, two steps at a time.  Larry’s voice shouted: 

“Christian!  Cousin Isabel!  Anyone—!”

There was urgency and alarm in the voice.

Lady Isabel and Christian were in the hall in an instant, and met Larry at the foot of the stairs.

“Cousin Dick’s ill!  A heart attack, I think—­I didn’t know what to do for him—­”

“I do!” said Christian, speeding upstairs.

Her mother followed her, and Larry remained in the hall.  Of one thing he was quite certain, that he had better keep out of Cousin Dick’s sight.  His nerves were quivering from the interview that had been so shatteringly abbreviated.  Had the friendly old setter, whose head at this moment was on his knee, while her limpid eyes swore to him that all her love was his, suddenly turned and rent him, it would scarcely be a shock worse than that he had received.  He had been undeterred by the ominous gloom of the Major’s greeting; few young men have very keen perception of mood, and Larry, deeply self-engrossed, wildly happy, had flung at once into his theme, which, it need hardly be said, was Christian.  Then the storm broke, and the lightning blazed, and the thunders of the house uttered their voice, while Larry, amazed, horrified, gradually, as the invective gathered volume and venom, becoming angry, stood in silence, and received in a single cloud-burst the bitter flood of long-pent prejudice, jealousy, and sense of injury.

“Dead!” Dick had roared; “I’d rather see her dead in her coffin than married to—­”

The epithets that a hoarded hatred finds ready to hand when its pent force is released, come horribly from the lips of an old man.  Yet, almost more horrible than the full tide of rage, was to see its ebb, as “the sick old servant” in Major Dick’s bosom failed him, and his heart staggered and fainted in its effort to abet him in denouncing the young cousin who he thought had wronged him.

Larry sat, fondling the old setter’s chestnut head, thinking it all over, flaming again at the remembered insults, quailing at the possibilities as they concerned Christian.  Once she had appeared at the top of the stairs, and said the single word, “Better!” before she vanished.

One half of Larry’s mind said “Better?  What do I care?  Better if he dies, if he comes between me and her!” The other, which was his deeper self, preserved the memory of Dick’s greying face and frightened eyes, and was glad that relief had come.