"And, as I was telling you," continued Mr. Hamlyn, "when this property was left to me in England, I made it a plea for throwing up my post in India, and came home. I landed about six weeks ago, and have been since busy in London with lawyers. Peveril, whom I knew in the days gone by, wrote to invite me to come to him here on a week's visit, before he and his wife leave for the South of France." "They are going to winter there for Mrs. Peveril's health," observed Eliza. "Peacock's Range, the place they live at, belongs to my cousin, Harry Carradyne. Did I understand you to say that you were not an Englishman?" "I was born in the West Indies. My family were English and had settled there." "What a coincidence!" exclaimed Eliza Monk with a smile. "My mother was a West Indian, and I was born there.--There's my home, Leet Hall!" "A fine old place," cried Mr. Hamlyn, regarding the mansion before him. "You may well say 'old,'" remarked the young lady. "It has been the abode of the Monk family from generation to generation. For my part, I sometimes half wish it would tumble down that we might move to a more lively locality. Church Leet is a dead-alive place at best." "We always want what we have not," laughed Mr. Hamlyn. "I would give all I am worth to possess an ancestral home, no matter if it were grim and gloomy. We who can boast of only modern wealth look upon these family castles with an envy you have little idea of." "If you possess modern wealth, you possess a very good and substantial thing," she answered, echoing his laugh.--"Here comes my aunt, full of wonder." Full of alarm also. Mrs. Carradyne stood on the terrace steps, asking if there had been an accident. "Nothing serious, Aunt Emma. Saladin refused the fence at Ring Gap, and we both came down together. This gentleman was so obliging as to forego his day's sport and escort me home. Mr.--Mr. Hamlyn, I believe?" she added. "My aunt, Mrs. Carradyne." The stranger confirmed it. "Philip Hamlyn," he said to Mrs. Carradyne, lifting his hat. Gaining the hall-door with slow and gentle steps came a young man, whose beautiful features were wasting more perceptibly day by day, and their hectic growing of a deeper crimson. "What is wrong, Eliza?" he cried. "Have you come to grief? Where's Saladin?" "My brother," she said to Mr. Hamlyn. Yes, it was indeed Hubert Monk. For he did not die of that run to the church the past New Year's Eve. The death-like faint proved to be a faint, nothing more. Nothing more _then_. But something else was advancing with gradual steps: steps that seemed to be growing almost perceptible now. Now and again Hubert fainted in the same manner; his face taking a death-like hue, the blue tinge surrounding his mouth. Captain Monk, unable longer to shut his eyes to what might be impending, called in the best medical advice that Worcestershire could afford; and the doctors told him the truth--that Hubert's days were numbered.