The emergency was so great that she feared to act alone.  She told everything to her husband, shewing him Lady Mary’s letter, and the effect upon him was so great that it made him ill.  “It will be better for me,” he said, “to turn my face to the wall and die before I know it.”  He took to his bed, and they of his household did think that he would die.  He hardly spoke except to his wife, and when alone with her did not cease to moan over the destruction which had come upon the house.  “If it could only have been the other brother,” said Lady Scroope.

“There can be no change,” said the Earl.  “He must do as it lists him with the fortune and the name and the honours of the family.”

Then on one morning there was a worse bulletin than heretofore given by the doctor, and Lady Scroope at once sent off the letter which was to recall the nephew to his uncle’s bedside.  The letter, as we have seen, was successful, and Fred, who caused himself to be carried over from Dorchester to Scroope as fast as post-horses could be made to gallop, almost expected to be told on his arrival that his uncle had departed to his rest.  In the hall he encountered Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper.  “We think my lord is a little better,” said Mrs. Bunce almost in a whisper.  “My lord took a little broth in the middle of the day, and we believe he has slept since.”  Then he passed on and found his aunt in the small sitting-room.  His uncle had rallied a little, she told him.  She was very affectionate in her manner, and thanked him warmly for his alacrity in coming.  When he was told that his uncle would postpone his visit till the next morning he almost began to think that he had been fussy in travelling so quickly.

That evening he dined alone with his aunt, and the conversation during dinner and as they sat for a few minutes after dinner had reference solely to his uncle’s health.  But, though they were alone on this evening, he was surprised to find that Sophie Mellerby was again at Scroope.  Lady Sophia and Mr. Mellerby were up in London, but Sophie was not to join them till May.  As it happened, however, she was dining at the parsonage this evening.  She must have been in the house when Neville arrived, but he had not seen her.  “Is she going to live here?” he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house.  “I wish she were,” said Lady Scroope.  “I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter.”  Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope.

The evening was dreadfully dull.  It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever.  He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels.  But before he went to bed his ennui was dissipated by a full explanation of all his aunt’s terrors.  She crept down to him at about nine, and having commenced her story by saying that she had a matter of most vital importance on which to speak to him, she told him in fact all that she had heard from Lady Mary.