There was not much in her letter apart from her kind and sympathizing comments upon his; but he gathered a good deal from the tone which unconsciously pervaded it. He learned that she had not succeeded in breaking up the party at Redmoor; that Sir Charles had invited a fresh relay of county guests; that Mr. Hammond's health was very precarious; and that Georgie had not been gratified in her wish to see her father. The letter made him more uneasy, more sad, by its reticence than by its revelations. If he could but have returned to Redmoor!--but it was impossible. If he could have left his father, how was he to have accounted for an uninvited return to Sir Charles Mitford's house? He did not choose, for many reasons, to assume or cultivate such relations with the worthy Baronet as going there in an informal manner would imply. So March and April slipped away, and Laurence Alsager was still at Knockholt, in close attendance upon his father. One day in the last week of April, Laurence was returning from a solitary ramble in the park, intending to read to his father for a while, if he should find that Sir Peregrine (sensibly feebler, and much inclined to slumber through the brightest hours of sunshine) could bear the exertion of listening. As he emerged from the shade of a thick plantation on the north side of the house and approached the terrace, he observed with alarm that several servants were assembled on the steps, and that two came running towards him, with evident signs of agitation and distress. He advanced quickly to meet them, and exclaimed, "Is anything wrong? Is my father worse?" "I am sorry to tell you, Sir Laurence--" began the foremost of the two servants. And so Laurence Alsager learned that his father had gone to his rest, and that he had come to his kingdom. CHAPTER XXIII. LORD DOLLAMORE'S COUNSEL. Lady Mitford remained in the library, where Colonel Alsager had bidden her farewell, for a long time after he had departed. She was sorely perplexed in spirit and depressed in mind. She was heartily grieved for Alsager, whom she had learned long ago to distinguish from the crowd of casual acquaintance by whom she had been surrounded as soon as her "brilliant marriage" had introduced her to the London world. Implicit confidence in him had come to reconcile her to the novel feeling of distrust towards others, which had gradually, under the deteriorating influence of her recent experiences, taken possession of her. He represented to her a great exception to a rule whose extent she had not yet thoroughly learned to estimate, and whose existence pained and disgusted her. His conversation with her just before his departure had ratified the tacit bond between them; and as Lady Mitford sat gazing idly from the wide window down the broad carriage-drive by which the riding-party had departed, she dwelt with grateful warmth upon every detail of Alsager's words, every variation of his manner and inflection of his voice.