My father is not--not-dying--dead? Hugo, tell me the truth."

"I solemnly assure you, Kitty, that your father is not even in danger."

"Then someone else is ill?"

"No, indeed. Be patient for a little time, and you shall see them all."

Kitty clasped her hands together with a sigh, and resigned herself to
her position. She leaned back in the comfortably-cushioned seat for a
time, and then roused herself to look out of the window. The night was a
dark one: she could see little but vague forms of tall trees on either
hand, but she felt by the motion of the carriage that they were going
uphill.

"We have not much further to go, have we?" she asked.

"Some distance, I am sorry to say. Your father was removed to a
farmhouse four miles from the station--the house nearest the scene of
the accident."

"Four miles!" faltered Kitty. "I thought that it was close to the
station."

"Is it disagreeable to you to drive so far with me?" said Hugo. "I will
get out and sit on the box if you do not want me."

"Oh, no, I should not like you to do that," said Kitty. But in her
heart, she wished that she had brought Mrs. Baxter's Janet.

Her next question showed some uneasiness, though of what kind Hugo could
not exactly discover.

"Whose brougham is this?"

"Mrs. Luttrell's. I borrowed it for the occasion."

"You are very good. I could easily have come in a fly."

"Don't say you would rather have done so," said Hugo, allowing his voice
to fall into a caressing murmur. But either Kitty did not hear, or was
displeased by this recurrence to his old habit of saying lover-like
things; for she gazed blankly out of the window, and made no reply.

After an hour's drive, the carriage turned in at some white gates, and
stopped in a paved courtyard surrounded by high walls. Kitty gazed round
her, thinking that she had seen the place before, but she was not
allowed to linger. Hugo hurried her through a door into a stone hall,
and down some dark passages, cautioning her from time to time to make no
noise. Once Kitty tried to draw back. "Where is Elizabeth?" she said.
"Is not Isabel here? Why is everything so still?"

Hugo pointed to the end of the corridor in which they stood. A nurse, in
white cap and apron, was going from one room to another. She did not
look round, but Kitty was reassured by her appearance. "Is papa there?"
she said in a whisper. "Is this the farmhouse?"

"Come this way," said Hugo, pointing with his finger to a n