His voice rose to a scream, as his father turned a terrible, set face upon him; his father, from whom he had scarce ever known but loving and joyful looks. Evil beyond words must be the tidings awaiting him. He clutched his breast with both hands. “Harry, be a man!” cried Rockhurst, starting as he marked the livid change that spread over the young countenance. But he was too late. “Dead?” cried the lad, and on a sudden gasped for breath. “A curse on this wound that will not heal.” He tore at the lapels of his riding-coat, reeled and fell, barely caught, into his father’s arms. “My God—I have killed my son!” Blood welled out between Rockhurst’s fingers, as he clasped the slight, inert form. “Harry!” he cried frantically to the deaf ears, “Harry, no, she is not dead. She is not dead! You shall even see her!—Hither, Diana!” He raised a loud call for her; then, with a groan, remembered him—the shot bolt! Had ever a man been so mad, had ever a man been so base—been so punished? He lowered the body to the ground; ’twas the old wound indeed, that wound taken in the defence of his father’s honour. A light word had been spoken of him to his son—his poor country lad, who had never heard, had never known, of one in the town nicknamed the Rakehell! Again he raised a desperate cry for help:— “Robin, there without…!” And all at once the silent, abandoned house was full of voices and footsteps—here were the white face of his own old servant; the scared chubbiness of Yorkshire Robin—and another countenance, unknown and solemn. And behold, Chitterley was saying:— “This way, good doctor!” When the moment holds life and death in the balance, there is no room for surprise. “Chitterley, ha, Chitterley,” cried Rockhurst. “Water and bandages, in Heaven’s name! This way, Sir Physician!—A physician by Divine mercy!” The man of healing, who had been much occupied with his pomander, dropped it from his nostrils to stare on the unexpected scene. And Chitterley, whose dim eyes had only just become aware of his master, burst into a dismal wail:— “My lord, fly!—Here is plague, here is death!” Then, in yet more piercing lamentation: “What! Master Harry, too! Merciful Heaven!” “Sir,” said Rockhurst to the physician, “your attention hither!” “Truly,” said the doctor, “this seems an urgent case.” He was perhaps not displeased to find, instead of the plague-stricken patient he had been summoned to attend, a clean lad a-bleeding of a sword wound. Old Chitterley ran feebly hither and thither, as father and surgeon bent together over the unconscious form. Robin stared, voiceless. “It is an old wound, ill-healed,” explained Rockhurst. “My faithful son—he fought, a month agone, one who impugned my good name—now, hearing I was in danger of the sickness, naught could keep him from me. All the way from Yorkshire … and he wasted with the fever of the hurt! When I saw him I chid him.” The father looked with dry eyes of agony at the physician’s thoughtful face.