Fairfax calculated justly. Paul, who had resisted his mother’s appeals and his sister’s entreaties, obeyed at once the imperative message of the man who threw the light of outside opinion and common necessity upon the situation. He arrived that night, just after the great London physician, who had come down to pronounce upon Sir William’s condition, had been driven to the railway. Paul had no carriage sent for him, and had said to himself that it was all an exaggeration and piece of folly, since some one from Markham was evidently dining out. There were, however, all the signs of melancholy excitement which usually follow such a visit visible in the hall and about the house when he reached it. Brown and one of his subordinates were standing talking in low tones on the great steps, shaking their heads as they conversed. Mr. Brown himself had managed to change his usually cheerful countenance into the semblance of that which is characteristic of an undertaker’s mute. “I knew how it would be the moment I set eyes upon him,” Mr. Brown was saying. “Death was in his face, if it ever was in a man’s.” Paul sprang from the lumbering old fly which he had found at the station with a mixture of eagerness and incredulity. “How is my father?” he said. “Oh, sir, you’re come none too soon,” said Brown, “Sir William is as bad as bad can be.” And then Alice, hearing something, she did not know what, rushed out. Every sound was full of terror in the oppressed house. She flung herself upon her brother and wept. There was no need to say anything; and Paul who had been lingering, thinking they did not mean what they said, believing it to be a device to get him seduced into that dangerous stronghold of his enemy’s house, was overcome too. “Why did not I hear before?” he said. But nobody bid him remember that he had been told a dozen times before.