“I wish I had not vexed him about my uncle Laurence’s boys.  We were becoming good friends before,” said Bessie.

“Oh, the squire will not bear malice for that.  He discriminates between the generosity of your intention towards the children, and what he probably mistook for a will to rule himself.  He acted very perversely in going out of the way.”

“Does my uncle Laurence know the news you bring?”

“Yes, but he desired me to be the first medium of it.  Jonquil is a long while seeking his master.”

A very long while.  So long that Bessie rang the bell to inquire, and the little page answered it.  The master was not come in, he said; they had sent every way to find him.  Bessie rose in haste, and followed by Mr. John Short went along the passage to her grandfather’s private room.  That was dark and empty, and so was the lobby by which it communicated with the garden and the way to the stables.  She was just turning back when she bethought her to open the outer door, and there, at the foot of the steps on the gravel-walk, lay the squire.  She did not scream nor cry, but ran down and helped to carry him in, holding his white head tenderly.  For a minute they laid him on the couch in the justice-room, and servants came running with lights.

“It is not death,” said Mrs. Betts, peering close in the unconscious face.  “The fire is out here:  we will move him to his chamber at once.”

As they raised him again one stiffened hand that clutched a letter relaxed and dropped it.  The lawyer picked it up and gave it to Miss Fairfax.  It was a week old—­a sort of official letter recording the wreck of the Foam and the loss of her crew.  The suddenness and tragical character of the news had been too much for the poor father.  In the shock of it he had apparently staggered into the air and had fallen unconscious, smitten with paralysis.  Such was the verdict of Mr. Wilson, the general practitioner at Mitford, who arrived first upon the scene, and Dr. Marks, the experienced physician from Norminster, who came in the early morning, supported his opinion.  The latter was a stranger to the house, and before he left it he asked to see Miss Fairfax.

The night had got over between waiting and watching, and Bessie had not slept—­had not even lain down to rest.  She begged that Dr. Marks might be shown to her parlor, and Mr. John Short appeared with him.  Mrs. Betts had put over her shoulders a white cachemire wrapper, and with her fair hair loosened and flowing she sat by the window over-looking the fields and the river where the misty morning was breaking slowly into sunshine.  Both the gentlemen were impressed by a certain power in her, a fortitude and gentleness combined that are a woman’s best strength in times of trouble and difficulty.  They could speak to her without fear of creating fresh embarrassment as plainly as it was desirable that they should speak, for she was manifestly aware of a responsibility devolving upon her.