‘Thank you.’  Silence again, but his face spoke a wish, and his aunt Catharine said, ‘What, my dear?’

‘I should like to see Mr. Holdsworth,’ said Louis, with eyes appealing to his father.

‘He has been here to inquire every day,’ said the Earl, choosing neither to refuse nor understand.  ’Whenever it is not too much for you—­’

‘It must be quickly, before I am weaker,’ said Louis.  ’Let it be before Walby returns, father.’

‘Whatever you wish, my dear—­’ and Lord Ormersfield, turning towards the table, wrote a note, which Mrs. Frost offered to despatch, thinking that her presence oppressed her elder nephew, who looked bowed down by the intensity of grief, which, unexpressed, seemed to pervade the whole man and weigh him to the earth:  and perhaps this also struck Louis for the first time, for, after having lain silent for some minutes, he softly said, ‘Father!’

The Earl was instantly beside him, but, instead of speaking, Louis gazed in his face, and sighed, as he murmured, ’I was meant to have been a comfort to you.’

‘My dear boy—­’ began Lord Ormersfield, but he could not trust his voice, as he saw Louis’s eyes moist with tears.

‘I wish I had!’ he continued; ’but I have never been anything but a care and vexation, and I see it all too late.’

‘Nay, Louis,’ said his father, trying to assume his usual tone of authority, as if to prove his security, ’you must not give way to feelings of illness.  It is weak to despond.’

‘It is best to face it,’ said the young man, with slow and feeble utterance, but with no quailing of eye or voice.  ’But oh, father!  I did not think you would feel it so much.  I am not worth it.’

For the Earl could neither speak nor breathe, as if smothered by one mighty unuttered sob, and holding his son’s hand between both his own, pressed it convulsively.

‘I am glad Mrs. Ponsonby is here,’ said Louis; ’and you will soon find what a nice fellow Edward Fitzjocelyn is, whom you may make just what—­’

‘Louis, my own boy, hush!  I cannot bear this,’ cried his father, in an accent wrung from him by excess of grief.

‘I may recover,’ said Louis, finding it his turn to comfort, ’and I should like to be longer with you, to try to make up—­’

’You will.  The leeches must relieve you.  Only keep up your spirits:  you have many years before you of happiness and success.’

The words brought a look of oppression over Louis’s face, but it cleared as he said, ‘I am more willing to be spared those years!’

His father positively started.  ‘Louis, my poor boy,’ he said, ’is it really so?  I know I have seemed a cold, severe father.’

‘Oh, do not say so!’ exclaimed Louis; ’I have deserved far less-idle, ungrateful, careless of your wishes.  I did not know I could pain you so much, or I would not have done it.  You have forgiven often, say you forgive now.’