"Are you going to London again?" asked the Squire, rather surprised. It was something new for Stephen Radcliffe to be a gad-about. "I shall have to go, I reckon," said Stephen, ungraciously. "I've to see Stettin before he sails." Stephen Radcliffe did go up again, apparently much against his will, to judge by the ill words he gave to it. And the report he brought back of Frank that time was rather more cheering. * * * * * The Squire was standing one hot morning in the yard in his light buff coat, blowing up Dwarf Giles for something that had gone wrong in the stables, when a man was seen making his way from the oak-walk towards the yard. The June hay-making was about, and the smell of the hay was wafted across to us on the wings of the summer breeze. "Who's that, Johnny?" asked the pater: for the sun was shining right in his eyes. "It--it looks like Stephen Radcliffe, sir." "You may tell him by his rusty suit of velveteen," put in Tod; who stood watching a young brood of ducklings in the duck-pond, and the agonies of the hen that had hatched them. Stephen Radcliffe it was. He had a stout stick in his hand, and his face was of a curious leaden colour. Which, with him, took the place of paleness. "I've had bad news, Mr. Todhetley," he began, in low tones, without any preliminary greeting. "Frank's dead." The Squire's straw hat, which he chanced to have taken off, dropped on the stones. "Dead! Frank!" he exclaimed in an awestruck tone. "It can't be true." "Just the first thought that struck me when I opened the letter," said Stephen, drawing one from his pocket. "Here it is, though, in black and white." His hands shook like anything as he held out the letter. It was from one of the assistants at Dale's--a Mr. Pitt: the head doctor, under Dale, Stephen explained. Frank had died suddenly, it stated, without warning of any kind, so that there was no possibility of apprising his friends; and it requested Mr. Radcliffe to go up without delay. "It is a dreadful thing!" cried the Squire. "So it is, poor fellow," agreed Stephen. "I never thought it was going to end this way; not yet awhile, at any rate. For him, it's a happy release, I suppose. He'd never ha' been good for anything." "What has he died of?" questioned Tod. The voice, or the question, seemed to startle Stephen. He looked sharply round, as if he hadn't known Tod was there, an ugly scowl on his face. "I expect we shall hear it was heart disease," he said, facing the Squire and turning his back upon Tod. "Why do you say that, Mr. Radcliffe? Was anything the matter with his heart?" "Dale had some doubts of it, Squire. He thought that was the cause of his wasting away." "You never told us that." "Because I never believed it. A Radcliffe never had a weak heart yet. And it's only a thought o' mine: he might have died from something else. Laid hands on himself, maybe."