Rockhurst sat awhile, moodily gazing on the red of the wine. Rousing himself at last, he drank wearily, handed the empty cup to the old man and, with a wave of the hand, dismissed him. Then he sat awhile longer yet, watching his son—There were those who said that my Lord Rockhurst’s eyes could look at naught else, when his heir was by him. Harry was engaged in receiving the sergeant yeoman’s report. The father did not speak till he saw Bracy salute and withdraw. Then he lifted his voice:— “Harry!” The young man started, and in an instant was by his father’s side. There was something of womanly solicitude in his air. ’Twas a vast pity (the soldiers said among themselves) to see a young man so set upon an old one!—“Clean against nature,” Corporal Tulip had vowed, whose own amorous heart was now ashes beneath the ashes of the Thames Street Hall, while his sweetheart already thought of walking o’ sunsets with Anspessade Strongitharm. Rockhurst rose and placed his hand on his son’s shoulder. The two looked affectionately into each other’s eyes: sad men both, and deadly worn this evening hour after the fierce work of the day. “Harry, it is borne in on me that not many days will be given us of company together thus—” “How, my lord—would you wish me from you again?” “Nay—this time, Harry, it will be thy father who leaves thee.” The young man started. Look and tone left no doubt of the meaning of the words. “Ah, father,” he cried, with the irritability born of keen anxiety; “if you would but listen to me! Indeed you expose yourself unduly—” “When death threatens from without, a man may smile at it. But when death knocks from within, Harry, thrice fool who does not hearken!” “Sir, you alarm me.” Harry’s voice shook. “Oh, I have been blind! Your white hairs, your altered demeanour, are sure signs of suffering—some hidden sickness!” “Even so, lad. Sickness incurable! A secret pain that gives no rest, night nor day. Nay, nay, Harry, no physician can avail, no remedy ease—” “Ah,” exclaimed the son in bitter accents, “now I understand much. You have never given me your confidence, yet methinks I might have been as true to help you in your need, as wise in my devotion to advise, as old Chitterley. This sickness is the secret between you. ’Tis for physician or remedy that Chitterley journeys forth daily in such mystery while you toil. Can you not see, my lord, that to be shut out from your counsel has but added deeper grief to me? And methinks that I might have proved as true to help, as wise to counsel, as yonder old man.… But it has always been your pleasure to treat me as a child.” Rockhurst fixed deep eyes of melancholy on his son. “My illness is not of the body, Harry; it is of the mind. But the canker works, never ceasing, eats from soul to flesh.” “You speak in riddles, sir.”