“It is too early for him to come home,” I answered.

My mother looked at her watch, and remarked, as a shade of concern flitted over her face,

“It certainly was your father.  I cannot be mistaken in his step.  What can have brought him home so early?  I hope he is not sick.”  And she arose and went hastily from the room.  I followed, for a sudden fear came into my heart.

“Edward! what ails you?  Are you sick?” I heard my mother ask, in an alarmed voice, as I came into her room.  My father had laid himself across the bed, and his face was concealed by a pillow, into which it was buried deeply.

“Edward!  Edward!  Husband!  What is the matter?  Are you ill?”

“Oh, father! dear father!” I cried, adding my voice to my mother’s, and bursting into tears.  I grasped his hand; it was very cold.  I leaned over, and, pressing down the pillow, touched his face.  It was cold also, and clammy with perspiration.

“Send James for the doctor, instantly,” said my mother.

“No, no—­don’t.”  My father partially aroused himself at this, speaking in a thick, unnatural voice.

“Go!” My mother repeated the injunction, and I flew down stairs with the order for James, our waiter, to go in all haste for the family physician.  When I returned, my mother, her face wet with tears, was endeavoring to remove some of my father’s outer garments.  Together we took off his coat, waistcoat and boots, he making no resistance, and appearing to be in partial stupor, as if under the influence of some drug.  We chafed his hands and feet, and bathed his face, that wore a deathly aspect, and used all the means in our power to rekindle the failing spark of life.  But he seemed to grow less and less conscious of external things every moment.

When the physician came, he had many questions to ask as to the cause of the state in which he found my father.  But we could answer none of them.  I watched his face intently, noting every varying expression, but saw nothing to inspire confidence.  He seemed both troubled and perplexed.  Almost his first act was to bleed copiously.

Twice, before the physician came, had my father been inquired for at the door, a thing altogether unusual at that hour of the day.  Indeed, his presence in the house at that hour was something which had not occurred within a year.

“A gentleman is in the parlor, and says that he must see Mr. W——­,” said the waiter, speaking to me in a whisper, soon after the physician’s arrival.

“Did you tell him that father was very ill,” said I.

“Yes; but he says that he must see him, sick or well.”

“Go down and tell him that father is not in a state to be seen by any one.”

The waiter returned in a few moments, and beckoned me to the chamber door.

“The man says that he is not going to leave the house until he sees your father.  I wish you would go down to him.  He acts so strangely.”