The General's voice suddenly faltered and broke. For some time his words had been almost unintelligible; they ran into one another, as if his tongue was not under the control of his will. His face, first red, then purple, was nearly black, and a slight froth was showing itself upon his discolored lips. As his sister and cousin looked at him in alarm, they saw that he staggered backwards as if about to fall. Hubert sprang forward and helped him to his chair, where he lay back, with his eyes half closed, breathing stertorously, and apparently almost unconscious. The rage, the excitement, had proved too much for his physical strength; he was on the verge, if he had not absolutely succumbed to it, of an apoplectic fit. The doctor was sent for in haste. All possibility of the General's expedition to London was out of the question, very much to Miss Vane's relief. She had been dreading an illness of this kind for some days, and it was this fear which had caused her to telegraph for Hubert before breaking to her brother the news that she herself had learned the night before. She had seen her father die of a similar attack, and had been roused to watchfulness by symptoms of excitement in her brother's manner during the last few days. The blow had fallen now, and she could only be thankful that matters were no worse. When the doctor had come--he was met half-way up the drive by the messenger, on his way to pay a morning visit to Mrs. Sydney--and when he had superintended the removal of the General to his room, Hubert was left for a time alone. He quitted the dining-room and made his way to his favorite resort at Beechfield Hall--a spacious conservatory which ran the whole length of one side of the house. Into this conservatory, now brilliant with exotics, several rooms opened, one after another--a small breakfast-room, a study, a library, billiard-room, and smoking-room. These all communicated with each other as well as with the conservatory, and it was as easy as it was delightful to exchange the neighborhood of books or pipes or billiard-balls for that of Mrs. Vane's orchids and stephanotis-blossoms. Poor Mrs. Vane used to grumble over the conservatory. It was on the wrong side of the house--the gentlemen's side, she called it--and did not run parallel with the drawing-room; but the very oddness of the arrangement seemed to please her guests. Hubert had always liked to smoke his morning cigar amongst the flowers, and, as he paced slowly up and down the tesselated floor, and inhaled the heavy perfume of the myrtles and the heliotrope, his features relaxed a little, his eyes grew less gloomy and his brow more tranquil. He glanced round him with an air almost of content, and drew a deep breath.