His only purpose in coming, it appeared, was to ask for information about the Bahamas.

’I can’t get rid of my cough, and I’m afraid it may turn to something dangerous.  You said, I remember, that people with weak chests wintered in the Bahamas.’

’Lionel can tell you all about it.  He’ll be here to-morrow.  Come and have a talk with him.’

‘No.’  He moved pettishly.  ’Tell me as much as you know yourself.  I don’t feel well enough to meet people.’

Looking at him with profound compassion, Nancy thought it very doubtful whether he would see another winter.  But she told him all she could remember about Nassau, and encouraged him to look forward with pleasure and hopefulness to a voyage thither.

‘How are you going to live till then?’

‘What do you mean?’ he answered, with a startled and irritated look.  ‘I’m not so bad as all that.’

‘I meant—­how are you going to arrange your life?’ Nancy hastened to explain.

‘Oh, I have comfortable lodgings.’

’But you oughtn’t to be quite alone.—­I mean it must be so cheerless.’

She made a proposal that he should have a room in this little house, and use it as a home whenever he chose; but Horace so fretted under the suggestion, that it had to be abandoned.  His behaviour was that of an old man, enfeebled in mind and body.  Once or twice his manner of speaking painfully reminded Nancy of her father during the last days of his life.

With a peevish sort of interest he watched his little nephew toddling about the room, but did not address a word to the child.

A cab was sent for to convey him to the railway station.  Nancy had known few such melancholy days as this.

On the morning when, by agreement, she was to go into town to see her brother, there arrived a note from him.  He had been advised to try a health-resort in Switzerland, and was already on the way.  Sorry he could not let Nancy know before; would visit her on his return.  Thus, in the style of telegraphy, as though he wrote in hot haste.

From Switzerland came two letters, much more satisfactory in tone and contents.  The first, written in July, announced a distinct improvement of health.  No details being supplied, Nancy could only presume that her brother was living alone at the hotel from which he dated.  The second communication, a month later, began thus:  ’I think I forgot to tell you that I came here with Mrs. Damerel.  She will stay till the end of the summer, and then, perhaps, go with me to the Bahamas, if that seems necessary.  But I am getting wonderfully well and strong.  Mrs. Damerel is kinder to me than any one in the world ever was.  I shall tell you more about her some day.’  The writer went on to describe a project he had of taking a small farm in Devonshire, and living upon it as a country gentleman.

Tarrant warned his wife not to build hopes upon this surprising report, and a few weeks brought news that justified him.  Horace wrote that he had suffered a very bad attack, and was only now sufficiently recovered to hold a pen.  ’I don’t know what we shall do, but I am in good hands.  No one was ever better nursed, night and day—­More before long.’