"Do you mean the forerunner of fatal illness, sir?" "Only in one of the cases, Frank. The man had been ill for a long time, but his death was quite sudden and unexpected. The other two had no illness whatever: they died without it." "From accident?" "Yes, from accident. I should not avow as much to any one but you, Frank, and run the risk of being ridiculed: but I tell you that when I saw Bell come in that morning, with that peculiar grey on his face, it shocked me. I believed then, as firmly as I ever believed anything in my life, that the man's hours were numbered." Frank neither stirred nor spoke. Just for the moment he might have been taken for a statue. "Where Bell is, or where he went to, I know not; but from the time I first heard of his disappearance, I feared the man was dead," added Dr. Raynor. "The probability was, I thought, that he had fallen down in some fit, which had been, or would be, fatal. And I confess the marvel to me throughout has been that his body could not be found. If this rumour be true--that he is lying at the bottom of the used-up shaft--the marvel is accounted for." "But--is it likely to be true, sir?" cried Frank, in remonstrance. "Very likely, I think," replied the doctor. "Though I cannot imagine what should bring him _there_." "Are you ready, Frank?" asked Edina, appearing in her grey plaid shawl and plain straw bonnet. "Good-bye, papa. I have been looking for you." Dr. Raynor stooped to kiss his daughter quietly: he was not a demonstrative man. Hester was at the door: the boy held the horse's head. Frank helped Edina in; and, taking the reins, followed her. "You will not stay too long, Edina?" "Only the eight or nine days I am going for, papa." They drove on. It was a lovely summer's day; and Edina, who enjoyed the sunshine, the balmy atmosphere, the blue sky, the waving trees, sat still and looked about her. Frank was unusually silent. In point of fact, the rumour he had just heard, touching Bell, had almost dumfounded him. Edina might have wondered at his prolonged silence, but that she was deep in thought herself. "Frank," she began, as they neared the station, "I wish you would answer me a question." He glanced quickly round at her, dread in his heart. Did the question concern the Bottomless Shaft? "Do you know whether anything is wrong with papa?" It was a great relief; and Frank, ever elastic, brightened up at once. "Wrong with him? In what way, Edina?" "With his health. In the last few weeks he seems to have changed so very much: sometimes he seems quite like a broken-down old man. Don't you see that he is ill, Frank?" "Yes, I am sure he is," replied Frank, readily. "But I don't know what can be the matter with him." "It seems to me that he wants rest." "He has more rest than he used to have, Edina; I save him all I can. There are some crotchety old patients who _will_ have him, you know." "I hope it is nothing serious! Do you think he will soon be better?"