When he was alone in his bedroom, he took out his handkerchief and passed it across his forehead. ‘Disgusting! How overheated one gets with a long ride!’ he muttered to himself. The hall bell sounded through the house. Self-possessed Gilbert gave a great start, and became suddenly paler than usual. ‘Pshaw!’ he uttered aloud, the next moment; ‘he has his key, of course.’ But it seemed to take him some time to change his riding-clothes for the garments he usually wore in an evening. Just before he went downstairs, he seated himself on a chair at his bedside, and drew a long breath. ‘Well, it had to be,’ he whispered to himself. ‘There was nothing else for it. And he is so dense—so dense. One must do the best. It was for the best.’ Then, as if feeling himself guilty of some weakness, he drew himself together with a little shake, composed his countenance, and went downstairs. Nothing was said by father or son relative to either the ride taken by the one, or the business accomplished by the other. Quite late, Otho Askam called to smoke a pipe and have a chat about the mills and other topics. And Gilbert slept quite soundly that night. This was in May. During the summer Mr. Langstroth became somewhat stronger, and things went on in their usual course until November. CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE WISDOM OF GILBERT One afternoon, about the middle of November, Gilbert, looking in at the ‘barracks,’ said to Michael— ‘I wish you’d give a little particular attention to my father. It strikes me that he is not so well as he ought to be, or rather, that he’s worse than usual. I wonder if Rowntree would mind looking in, as well?’ ‘Of course, we will come. Now, do you mean? I’ll go at once, and the doctor at night.’ He went across to his father’s house and saw him. Mr. Langstroth was certainly very weak and unwell, but not, it seemed to Michael, seriously so. He left directions for him to be kept very quiet, and returned to his dwelling, promising that he and Dr. Rowntree would both look in during the evening. As they sat at dinner, a messenger came hurriedly from the Red Gables, summoning them to go at once to Mr. Langstroth, who was very ill. In a very few moments they were in the house, but only to find that all was over, and that Gilbert, white and haggard-looking, was standing by the chair in which their father lay, lifeless. Gilbert said they had risen from table, and he had supported his father to his chair, into which he had sunk, dead. The young man’s pallor and tremulousness were fully accounted for to Michael, by the fact of the sudden blank which must now come in his life, after his years of devoted attention to his father, who had thus so suddenly departed; and by every silent sign that he knew how to give, he sought to assure Gilbert of the sympathy and fellow-feeling he experienced.