!' he said, choked, the tears falling down his lined
cheeks on to the squire's hand. 'He can never rally from this. And I was
fool enough to think yesterday I had pulled him through!'

Again a long gaze of inarticulate grief; then he looked up at Robert.

'He wouldn't have Benson to-night. I slept in the next room with the
door ajar. A few minutes ago I heard him moving. I was up in an instant,
and found him standing by that door, peering through, bare-footed, a
wind like ice coming up. He looked at me, frowning, all in a flame. "_My
father_," he said--"_my father_--he went that way--what do _you_ want
here? Keep back!" I threw myself on him; he had something sharp which
scratched me on the temple; I got that away from him, but it was his
hands'--and the old man shuddered. 'I thought they would have done for
me before any one could hear, and that then he would kill himself as his
father did.'

Again he hung over the figure on the bed--his own withered hand stroking
that of the squire with a yearning affection.

'When was the last attack?' asked Robert sadly.

'A month ago, sir, just after they got back. Ah, Mr. Elsmere, he
suffered. And he's been so lonely. No one to cheer him, no one to please
him with his food--to put his cushions right--to coax him up a bit, and
that--and his poor sister too, always there before his eyes. Of course
he would stand to it he liked to be alone. But I'll never believe men
are made so unlike one to the other. The Almighty meant a man to have a
wife or a child about him when he comes to the last. He missed you, sir,
when you went away. Not that he'd say a word, but he moped. His books
didn't seem to please him, nor anything else. I've just broke my heart
over him this last year.'

There was silence a moment in the big room, hung round with the shapes
of bygone Wendovers. The opiate had taken effect. The squire's
countenance was no longer convulsed. The great brow was calm; a more
than common dignity and peace spoke from the long peaked face. Robert
bent over him. The madman, the cynic, had passed away: the dying scholar
and thinker lay before him.

'Will he rally?' he asked, under his breath.

Meyrick shook his head.

'I doubt it. It has exhausted all the strength he had left. The heart is
failing rapidly. I think he will sleep away. And, Mr. Elsmere, you
go--go and sleep. Benson and I'll watch. Oh, my scratch is nothing, sir.
I'm used to a rough-and-tumble life. But you go. If th