lier, there
was a coffin supported by trestles, with its foot towards the door.
On the white pillow there lay the still whiter face of a corpse,
and it was the corpse of Arthur Grey.

* * * * *

What happened immediately after no one ever precisely knew. Not
even the waiting servant had heard the street-door shut.

Next morning the park-keepers found a young man lying on the grass
in Hyde Park, drenched to the skin with the night's heavy rain,
unconscious, and apparently dying. The papers in his pockets proved
that he was Philip Vaughan. A long and desperate illness followed,
and for months both life and reason trembled in the balance. Lord
Liscombe hurried up to London, and Vaughan's servant explained
everything. Arthur Grey had been taken ill on the homeward voyage.
The symptoms would now be recognized as typhoid, but the disease
had not then been diagnosed, and the ship's surgeon pronounced it
"low fever." He landed at Southampton, pushed his way to London,
arrived at his lodgings more dead than alive, and almost immediately
sank into the coma from which he never recovered. It was impossible
to communicate with Vaughan, whose address was unknown; and when
his telegram arrived, announcing his instant return, the servant
and the landlady agreed that he must have heard the news from some
other source, and was hurrying back to see his friend before he
became invisible for ever. "You're just in time" meant just in
time to see the body, for the coffin was to be closed that evening.

* * * * *

The struggle was long and desperate, but Vaughan had on his side
youth and a constitution, not strong indeed, but unweakened by
profligacy. By slow degrees his nervous system rallied from the
shock, and after a long period of foreign travel he returned, in
great part, to his former habits. Only he could not and would not
re-enter the House of Commons, but announced his retirement, on the
score of health, at the next Election. Soon afterwards he inherited Lord
Liscombe's fortune, made over Liscombe Abbey and its responsibilities
to a distant cousin, and insensibly glided into the way of living
which I described at the outset. Two years after the Election of
1880 he died at Rome, where he had been spending the winter. The
attack of fever to which he succumbed was not peculiarly severe,
but the doctor said that he made no effort to live, and was in
fact worn out, thoug