But the little bird sang on.

CHAPTER LI.

"Quite hopeless!"

Joseph Fleming repeated the words incredulously.

"Yes," said Lady Engleton, "it is the terrible truth."

The Professor had been growing worse, and at length, his state became so
alarming that he decided to return to England. Miss Du Prel and an old
friend whom she had met abroad, accompanied him.

"I understand they are all at the Priory," said Joseph.

"Yes; Miss Du Prel telegraphed to Mrs. Temperley, and Mrs. Temperley and
I put our heads together and arranged matters as well as we could in the
emergency, so that the Professor's wish might be gratified. He desired
to return to the Priory, where his boyhood was spent."

"And is there really no hope?"

"None at all, the doctor says."

"Dear me, dear me!" cried Joseph. "And is he not expected to live
through the summer?"

"The summer! ah no, Mr. Fleming, he is not expected to live many days."

"Dear me, dear me!" was all that Joseph could say. Then after a pause,
he added, "I fear Mrs. Temperley will feel it very much. They were such
old friends."

"Oh! poor woman, she is heart-broken."

* * * * *

The Professor lingered longer than the doctor had expected. He was very
weak, and could not bear the fatigue of seeing many people. But he was
perfectly cheerful, and when feeling a little better at times, he would
laugh and joke in his old kindly way, and seemed to enjoy the fragment
of life that still remained to him.

"I am so glad I have seen the spring again," he said, "and that I am
here, in the old home."

He liked to have the window thrown wide open, when the day was warm.
Then his bed would be wheeled closer to it, so that the sunshine often
lay across it, and the scent of the flowering shrubs and the odour of
growth, as he called it, floated in upon him. He looked out into a world
of exquisite greenery and of serene sky. The room was above the
drawing-room, and if the drawing-room windows were open, he could hear
Hadria playing. He often used to ask for music.

The request would come generally after an exhausting turn of pain, when
he could not bear the fatigue of seeing people.

"I can't tell you what pleasure and comfort your music is to me," he
used to say, again and again. "It has been so ever since I knew you.
When I think of the thousands of poor devils who have to end their lives
in some wretched, lonely, sordid fashion, after hardships