This letter was sent on to John.  Two days later a fly drove up to the Dower House, and Sydney walked into the drawing-room alone.

Where did she come from?

>From Liverpool.  John was gone to America.

“I wanted to go too,” she said, tears coming into her eyes; “but he said he could go faster without me, and he could not take me to these Ashtons, or leave me alone in New York.”

“It was very noble and good in you to let him go, Sydney,” cried Babie.

“It would have broken his heart for ever,” said Sydney, “if he had not tried to do his utmost for Jock.  He says Jock has been more than a brother to him, and that he owes all that he is, and all that he has, to him and Mother Carey, and that even-—if-—if he were too late, he should save her from coming home alone.  You think he was right, mamma?”

“Right indeed, and I am thankful that my Sydney was unselfish, and did not try to keep him back.”

“O mamma, I could never have looked him in the face again if I had hindered him!  And so we went up to London, and luckily Dr. Medlicott was at home, and he was very eager that John should go.  He says he does not think it will be too late, and they talked it over, and got some medicines, and then John let me come down to Liverpool with him and see him on board, and we telegraphed the last thing to Mrs. Brownlow, so that it might be too late for her to stop him.”

While that message was rushing on its way beneath the Atlantic it was the early morning of the ebb tide of the fever, and the patient was resting almost doubled over with his head on pillows before him, either slumber or exhaustion, so still, that his mother had yielded to urgent persuasion, and lain down in the next room to sleep in the dreamless repose of the overworn watcher.

For over him leant a sturdy, dark-browed, dark-bearded figure, to whom she had ventured to entrust him.  Some fourteen hours before, Robert had with some difficulty found them out at Ashton Vineyard, having been irresistibly drawn by Jock’s telegram to spend in the States an interval of leisure in his work, caused by his appointment as principal to another Japanese college.  He had gone to the bank where Jock had given an address, and his consternation had been great on hearing the state of things.  All this, however, he had left unexplained, and his mother had hardly even thought of asking where he had dropped from.  For Jock was in the midst of one of his cruellest attacks of the fever, and all she had been conscious of was a knock and summons to the door, where Primrose Ashton gently whispered, “Here is some one you will be glad to see,” and Robert’s low deep voice, almost inaudible with emotion, asked, “May I see him?”

“He will not know you,” she said, with the sad composure of one who has no time to grieve.  But even in the midst of the babbling moan of fevered weakness, there was half a smile as of pleased surprise, and an evident craving for the strong support of his brother’s arm, and by-and-by Jock looked up with meaning and recognition in his eyes, though quite unable to speak, in that faint and exhausted state indeed that verged nearer to death after every attack.