were no electric messages possible to get medical help for the
squire, nor, indeed, would any help avail.

With a great sigh, Duke resumed his watch at the foot of the high bed;
and Joyce, crossing over, kissed her mother and Piers, and then gazed
down upon her father.

"Dear dad!" she said, inadvertently using the familiar name.

"He has not spoken nor opened his eyes since we laid him here," Mrs.
Falconer said. "He knows no one--no one----"

"Did he tell how it happened?"

"No."

"It might have been that he was thrown from--from--Mavis."

"No," Mrs. Falconer said again, "that could not be, they think; besides,
they found a heavy stick and a tinder box close by."

Presently Piers came down from his place, and Joyce put her arms round
him. The boy was very calm, but great tears fell upon Joyce's hand as
she pressed him close.

The silent watch went on. Duke lay motionless, but his eyes were on the
alert. The servants looked in sometimes, and brought Joyce and her
mother some tea and cake. Joyce swallowed a cup of tea, but ate nothing.

Could this be the evening of the day which dawned so brightly?--the
Wrington bells chiming, the village children singing hymns, joyousness
and gladness everywhere. The guests gathered round Mrs. More; the
bright, intelligent conversation to which she was listening; then her
own narrative of the Mendip adventure;--and this brought her to the
present from the past!

If her father had been assailed by a malicious miner on Mendip, that
assailant was Bob Priday; of this she felt no doubt.

The Bristol doctor came, and the Wells doctor and they held a
consultation. But there was nothing to be done; the injury Mr. Falconer
had received was mortal.

"Will he give no sign, no word that he knows us?" Mrs. Falconer asked.
"Oh, for one word!"

"We do not think there will be any return of consciousness," the doctors
said, "but we cannot tell."

No; no one could tell. And so the sad hours of the night passed, and the
dawn broke over the familiar fields, and Fair Acres smiled in the first
bright rays of the morning.

Piers had slept curled up in his window-seat, worn out with grief. Mrs.
Falconer, too, had slept in an upright position, her head resting
against the back of the chair, sleeping for sorrow.

But Joyce did not sleep; she kept watch, hoping, praying for one word of
farewell.

As the first sunbeam slanted through the casement, her father opened his
eyes, and fastened t