So Henry ate, or made a pretence of doing so, and afterwards was helped upstairs to a room opposite to that in which his father lay dying, where he settled himself in an invalid chair which Sir Reginald had used on the few occasions when he had been outside the house during the past weeks, and waited. All that day and all the next night he waited, and still his father did not recover consciousness—indeed, Dr. Childs now appeared to be of opinion that he would pass from coma to death. Much as he wished to bid a last farewell to his father, Henry could not repress a certain sense of relief when he heard that this was likely to be the case, for an instinct, coupled with some words which Ellen had let fall, warned him that Sir Reginald wished to speak to him upon the subject of Miss Levinger. But the doctor was mistaken; for about six o’clock in the morning, nearly twenty-four hours after he had reached the house, Henry was awakened by Ellen, who came to tell him that their father was fully conscious and wished to see him at once. Seating himself in the invalid chair, he was wheeled across the passage to the red bedroom, in which he had himself been born. The top halves of some of the window-shutters were partly open, and by the light that streamed through them into the dim death-chamber, he saw his father’s gaunt but still stately form propped up with pillows in the great four-post bed, of which the red curtains had been drawn back to admit the air. “Here comes Henry,” whispered Lady Graves. The old man turned his head, and, shaking back his snowy hair, he peered round the room. “Is that you, my son?” he said in a low voice, stretching out a trembling hand, which Henry took and kissed. “You find me in a bad way: on the verge of death, where you have so lately been.” “Yes, it is I, father.” “God bless you, my boy! and God be thanked that you have been able to come to listen to my last words, and that I have recovered my senses so that I can speak to you! Do not go away, my dear, or you, Ellen, for I want you all to hear what I have to say. You know, Henry, the state of this property. Mismanagement and bad times have ruined it. I have been to blame, and your dear brother, whom I hope soon to see, was to blame also. It has come to this, that I am leaving you beggars, and worse than beggars, since for the first time in the history of our family we cannot pay our debts.” Here he stopped and groaned, and Lady Graves whispered to him to rest awhile.