useum of curios connected with the Park and outlying
woodlands, the remains of the old forest that covered the land when even
Earls were upstarts. A record pair of antlers on the wall is still
incredulously measured tip to tip by visitors unconvinced by local
testimony, and a respectable approach to Roman Antiquities is at rest
after a learned description by Archaeology. The place smells sweet of an
old age that is so slow--that the centuries have handled so
tenderly--that one's heart thinks of it rather as spontaneous
preservation than decay. It will see to its own survival through some
lifetimes yet, if no man restores it or converts it into a Studio.

Is his rating "Death" or not, whose body is so still on its extemporised
couch--just a mattress from the keeper's cottage close at hand? Was the
doctor's wording warranted when he said just now under his
breath:--"_It_ is in here"? Could he not have said "He"? What does the
dog think, that waits and watches immovable at _its_ feet? If this is
death, what is he watching for? What does the old keeper himself think,
who lingers by this man whom he may have slain--this man who _may_ live,
yet? He has scarcely taken his eyes off that white face and its
strapped-up wound from the first moment of his sight of it. He does not
note the subdued entry of Lady Gwendolen and the two doctors, and when
touched on the shoulder to call his attention to the presence of a
ladyship from the Castle, defers looking round until a fancy of his
restless hope dies down--a fancy that the mouth was closing of itself.
He has had such fancies by scores for the last few hours, and said
farewell to each with a groan.

"My mother is at the cottage, Stephen," says Gwen. "She would like to
see you, I know." Thereon the old man turns to go. He looks ten years
older than his rather contentious self of yesterday. The young lady says
no word either way of his responsibility for this disaster. She cannot
blame, but she cannot quite absolve him yet, without a grudge. Her
mother can; and will, somehow.

The dog has run to her side for a moment--has uttered an undertone of
bewildered complaint; then has gone back patiently to his old post, and
is again watching. The great surgeon and the girl stand side by side,
watching also. The humbler medico stands back a little, his eyes rather
on his senior than on the body.

"It is absolutely certain--this?" says Lady Gwen; questioning, not
affirming. She is wonderful