But the words trembling upon his lips never found utterance, for now a terrible thing had happened and Fielding Thaneford fell to the floor and lay there, his face twitching strangely. A paralytic stroke, of course, but one must be an eye witness, see the victim actually struck down, to realize the full import of such a tragedy. One moment the man stands erect and serene in the unquestioned possession of all his godlike qualities of mind and body; the next, he lies as inert and insensate as an ancient tree trunk riven and felled by the lightning stroke. Fielding Thaneford was an old man--nearly ninety, as I was later on to learn--but so well preserved that it was difficult to realize that the hour of his passing had struck. And the determining factor in this final equation is so often comparatively insignificant. Here is a human being, an integral member of the visible universe, by right enumerated in every taking of the cosmic census: somewhere a minute blood vessel fails to perform its function, and the number is instantly replaced by a cipher. When the family physician, Doctor Marcy, finally arrived he directed that the sick man should be put to bed at "Hildebrand Hundred"; in the absence of a regular ambulance it would be unwise to try and get him home. It was Betty who came and told me of the doctor's decision. "You will have to make formal tender of your hospitality to John Thaneford," she said. "I!" I gazed at her in honest stupefaction. "You are Hildebrand of the 'Hundred,'" she reminded me, her lip trembling ever so slightly as she spoke. "If you wish it so," I said humbly, and thereupon I went upstairs and knocked at the door of the sick room. John Thaneford opened it, and stood glowering as I delivered my message. I dare say I expressed myself in bungling terms, but my awkwardness was easily outpaced by his ungraciousness; he intimated curtly that neither he nor his father would be dependent upon my hospitality an instant longer than might be absolutely necessary. I proceeded to fume inwardly as I walked away, but my irritation vanished the moment I rejoined Betty; somehow one could not cherish mere pettiness in her serene presence. "Can you spare me a few moments?" I asked, and with an assenting nod she led the way back to the now deserted library. The westering sun was pouring through the great windows, and the purple radiance from the gigantic bunch of grapes borne by the Israelitish spies lay in a crimson pool on the oaken floor; involuntarily I drew aside, unwilling to step upon the apparently ensanguined spot. Betty divined instantly my movement of repulsion. "It does suggest that very thing," she said, with a little shiver. "Come over here by the chess table. Father and I were accustomed to play every night; he used to wonder what sort of game you would give him when you came on that long expected visit."