Luncheon was over when Christabel went back to Mount Royal; but as Mrs. Tregonell was too ill to take anything beyond a cup of beef-tea in her own room this fact was of no consequence. The mistress of Mount Royal had been declining visibly since her return to Cornwall; Mr. Treherne, the family doctor, told Christabel there was no cause for alarm, but he hinted also that her aunt was not likely to be a long-lived woman. "I'm afraid she worries herself," he said; "she is too anxious about that scapegrace son of hers." "Leonard is very cruel," answered Christabel; "he lets weeks and even months go by without writing, and that makes his poor mother miserable. She is perpetually worrying herself about imaginary evils--storm and shipwreck, runaway horses, explosions on steamboats." "If she would but remember a vulgar adage, that 'Nought is never in danger,'" muttered the doctor, with whom Leonard had been no favourite. "And then she has frightful dreams about him," said Christabel. "My dear Miss Courtenay, I know all about it," answered Mr. Treherne; "your dear aunt is just in that comfortable position of life in which a woman must worry herself about something or other. 'Man was born to trouble,' don't you know, my dear? The people who haven't real cares are constrained to invent sham ones. Look at King Solomon--did you ever read any book that breathes such intense melancholy in every line as that little work of his called Ecclesiastes. Solomon was living in the lap of luxury when he wrote that little book, and very likely hadn't a trouble in this world. However, imaginary cares can kill as well as the hardest realities, so you must try to keep up your aunt's spirits, and at the same time be sure that she doesn't over-exert herself. She has a weak heart--what we call a tired heart." "Does that mean heart-disease?" faltered Christabel, with a despairing look. "Well, my dear, it doesn't mean a healthy heart. It is not organic disease--nothing wrong with the valves--no fear of excruciating pains--but it's a rather risky condition of life, and needs care." "I will be careful," murmured the girl, with white lips, as the awful shadow of a grief, hardly thought of till this moment, fell darkly across her joyless horizon. Her aunt, her adopted mother--mother in all sweetest care and love and thoughtful culture--might too soon be taken from her. Then indeed, and then only, could she know what it was to be alone. Keenly, bitterly, she thought how little during the last dismal months she had valued that love--almost as old as her life--and how the loss of a newer love had made the world desolate for her, life without meaning or purpose. She remembered how little more than a year ago--before the coming of Angus Hamleigh--her aunt and she had been all the world to each other, that tender mother-love all sufficing to fill her life with interest and delight.