The poor woman was overcome with her own emotion, and Lord Spoonbill hastened to the room into which the patient had been removed. When he entered the apartment, he saw by the light of one dim candle, and a recently kindled fire, the figure of Dr Greendale sitting in an easy chair, in a state of apparent insensibility, and on one side of him sat Mrs Greendale, grasping his hand with convulsive eagerness, and looking anxiously on his still and frozen features: how like and how unlike what he was! On the other side Penelope was kneeling, holding him also by the hand, and hiding her face, that its expression of deep feeling might not needlessly distress her aunt. Gentle sobbings were heard, and the hard breathings of the death-stricken man. His lordship stood for a few seconds as if rivetted to the spot where his eye first caught the sight of the melancholy group. Mrs Greendale first noticed the presence of a stranger, and recognised his lordship, who then advanced with slow and gentle step towards the sick man, and silently took the hand of Mrs Greendale, whose tears then flowed afresh, as with louder sobbings she exclaimed-- “Oh, my lord, what a sight is here! Those dear eyes have been fixed as they are now for hours. He was a good man, my lord; such a heart! such tenderness! Oh, he cannot, he cannot continue long! Oh, that I should live to see this!” As Mrs Greendale spoke, Penelope rose from her kneeling posture, and turning round, then first saw that Lord Spoonbill was in the room. His lordship intreated Mrs Greendale to compose herself, and then turning again towards the sick man’s chair, he held out his hand to Penelope, who resigned to his lordship the hand the dying man, which she had been holding. Lord Spoonbill took the offered hand, and kneeling on one knee pressed the hand to his lips, and looked with searching earnestness to the face of the patient, as if endeavouring to rouse him into consciousness and recollection. The eyes were fixed and motionless, and their brightness was passing away. After a few moments there appeared a convulsive movement of the lips, and there seemed to be a gleam of consciousness in the eye, and the hand which Lord Spoonbill had been holding was lifted up and placed on his lordship’s head, from whence it fell in a moment, and the breathing, after one long sigh, died away and was heard no more. At the instant of the change, Mrs Greendale uttered a piercing shriek, and fell senseless to the floor. Penelope, as if unconscious of the distress of her aunt and the presence of Lord Spoonbill, knelt gently down, and lifting up her hands and her eyes, murmured a prayer, which relieved for a moment her bursting heart; for tears came copiously to her aid, and her presence of mind was soon restored, and she assisted the domestics in removing Mrs Greendale into another apartment.