‘I fear your mother is very ill.’

‘Very ill,’ said Kalliope.  ’Richard came last night, and he let her know what we had kept from her; but she is calmer now.’

‘Then your brother Richard is here.’

‘Yes; he is gone up to Mr. White’s.’

’He is in a solicitor’s office, I think.  Will he be able to undertake the case?’

’Oh no, no’—–­the white cheek flushed, and the hand trembled.  ’There is a Leeds family here, and he is afraid of their finding out that he has any connection with this matter.  He says it would be ruin to his prospects.’

‘Then we must do our best without him,’ Sir Jasper said in a fatherly voice, inexpressively comforting to the desolate wounded spirit.  ’I will not keep you long from your mother, but will you answer me a few questions?  Your brother tells me—–­’

She looked up almost radiantly, ‘You have seen him?’

‘Yes.  I saw him yesterday,’ and as she gazed as if the news were water to a thirsty soul—–­’he sent his love, and begged his mother and you to forgive the distress his precipitancy has caused.  I did not think him looking ill; indeed, I think the quiet of his cell is almost a rest to him, as he makes sure that he can clear himself.’

‘Oh, Sir Jasper! how can we ever be grateful enough!’

’Never mind that now, only tell me what is needful, for time is short.  Your brother sent these notes in their own envelope, he says.’

’Yes, a very dirty one.  I did not open it or see them, but enclosed it in one of my own, and sent it by my youngest brother, Petros.’

‘How was yours addressed?’

’Francis Stebbing, Esq., Marble Works; and I put in a note in explanation.’

‘Is the son’s name likewise Francis?’

‘Francis James.’

‘Petros delivered it?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

Here they were interrupted by Maura’s stealing timidly in with the message that poor mamma had heard that Sir Jasper was here, and would he be so very good as to come up for one minute and speak to her.

‘It is asking a great deal,’ said Kalliope, ’but it would be very kind, and it might ease her mind.’

He was taken to the poor little bedroom full of oppressive atmosphere, though the window was open to relieve the labouring breath.  It seemed absolutely filled with the enormous figure of the poor dropsical woman with white ghastly face, sitting pillowed up, incapable of lying down.

‘Oh, so good! so angelic!’ she gasped.

‘I am sorry to see you so ill, Mrs. White.’

’Ah! ’tis dying I am, Colonel Merrifield—–­begging your pardon, but the sight of you brings back the times when my poor captain was living, and I was the happy woman.  ’Tis the thought of my poor orphans that is vexing me, leaving them as I am in a strange land where their own flesh and blood is unnatural to them,’ she cried, trying to clasp her swollen hands, in the excitement that brought out the Irish substructure of her nature.  ’Ah, Colonel dear, you’ll bear in mind their father that would have died for you, and be good to them.’