"D’you think you could come?" he asked breathlessly. "I’m afraid Guardie’s ill or something, he’s so white and he doesn’t seem able to speak for gasping." Down went the nice curtains in an untidy heap on the dressing-table as Mrs. Methuen leapt off the chair, seized something from her coat which was lying on the bed, and followed Montagu. Edmund had already gone. Mr. Wycherly was sitting huddled up in his chair. His face looked wan and drawn in the fading light; he certainly was breathing heavily and with great difficulty. But when he saw Mrs. Methuen he made an ineffectual attempt to rise. She tore the silver cup from the bottom of the flask and tumbled the contents hastily into it. "Don’t try to get up," she said as she knelt down beside him; "you’re a little faint; drink this, please, at once." She literally poured the brandy down Mr. Wycherly’s throat. "Clear those books off the sofa, boys," she commanded; "carefully now! Ah, that’s better. Now you must lie down for a few minutes; it’s bad to sit forward like that." Somehow in three minutes this energetic young lady had taken entire command of the situation. Mr. Wycherly was helped on to the sofa, Edmund had fetched a rug to cover him, and she and Montagu were wrestling with the huge gothic window, which should have opened like a door in the centre and was, apparently, hermetically sealed. At last it yielded to their combined efforts, and the sweet, fresh evening air rushed into the room. "Please finish the brandy," said Mrs. Methuen in precisely the same voice in which she would have adjured her baby not to leave any milk in his bottle. "You’re completely done up; no proper food, no fresh air. I never felt anything like the atmosphere of this room; and then stooping and lifting heavy books on the top of all the rest. No wonder your heart gave out. I can’t think why they make the cups of flasks such an awkward shape." Mr. Wycherly meekly took the cup from her hand and drained it. Already his face looked less ashy and he could speak. "I cannot tell you," he began—— "Don’t try to tell us anything yet; for five minutes you are to stay perfectly quiet. I’ll leave Montagu in charge, and he is not to allow you to stir till I come back. Come, Edmund." Edmund’s round face was very serious as he followed Mrs. Methuen back to the bedroom. Aunt Esperance, as he always put it, "was away." Aunt Esperance, who had seemed a necessary part of life—beneficent, immutable, inevitable. Yet she had gone, and her place knew her no more. Might not a like thing happen to Mr. Wycherly? And, if so, what was to become of him and Montagu? Edmund was not imaginative. He lived his jolly life wholly without thought of the morrow. But at that moment he was startled into a realisation of how much he loved his guardian.