There was a pause. Had it not been for the entire ignorance of the easy household, calm, and fearing no evil, it might have been thought that a shiver ran through the air, as this crisis suddenly developed itself out of the quiet: every one was quite still. They all looked at the child with amused curiosity--all but one. And though there was nothing meant by it the effect was strange. It was left to Sir William to speak, which he did in a clear, thin voice, suddenly becoming judicial and solemn. “Whom do you mean by the little gentleman, Bell?” “Oh, he is a relation--he told us so,” said the little girl. “And he has brought me some sweetmeats from abroad--me!--though he didn’t know my name. What sort of things would you call sweetmeats, mamma?” “And he is living down at the Markham Arms. We saw him to-day. He jumped into the railway carriage with Dolly Stainforth.” “Oh, but I saw him come back--following the carriage,” cried Roland. “He stood at the station-gate to see you pass, papa, and looked so sorry. That was him, Alice, that stopped us when we went to the village with Mr. Fairfax. You saw him. He wanted to shake hands all round.” The pause now, after this clamour of voices, was more curious than ever. Lady Markham began to wonder a little. “A relation!--who could it be? Do you know of any relation who would not have come to us straight? I do not think it could be a relation. You must have made a mistake.” “Oh, no; we have not made any mistake,” cried the children with one voice. “Besides, he was such friends with us. He promised to give us quantities of things; and then he is like papa.” “I don’t think Sir William is well,” said Fairfax, hurriedly. He rose up with an exclamation of terror, and Lady Markham sprang to her feet and rushed to her husband’s side. “I am feeling--a little faint,” he said, in a half-whisper, with a tremendous attempt to regain command of himself; but it failed. His head drooped, his eyelids quivered, and then lay half-closed upon the dim langour underneath that had lost all power of seeing; his breath laboured, and came in gasps from his pale lips. All the sudden recovery in which they had been so happy was over. Alice put the children hastily out of the room, like a flock frightened, as she ran to call Jarvis, to get what was necessary, to send for the village doctor. The boys and girls got together into a corner of the hall and cried silently, clinging together in fright and sorrow; or at least the girls cried, wondering-- “Was it anything we said?” “Oh, I wish--I wish!” cried Bell, but in a whisper, “that I had not said anything about the little gentleman!”