‘Not the faintest,’ Laura Malcolm answered, very sadly. ‘The London physician was here for the last time to-day. He has been down every week for the last two months. He said to-day that there would be no occasion for him to come any more; he did not think papa--I have always called your cousin by that name--could live through the night. He has been less restless and troubled since then, and he is now sleeping very quietly. He may linger a little longer than the physician seemed to think likely; but beyond that I have no hope whatever.’ This was said with a quiet, restrained manner that was more indicative of sorrow than any demonstrative lamentation could have been. There was something almost like despair in the girl’s look and tone--a dreary hopelessness--as if there were nothing left for her in life when the friend and protector of her girlhood should be taken from her. John Treverton watched her closely as she sat looking at the fire, with her dark eyes shrouded by their long lashes. Yes, she was very beautiful. That was a fact about which there was no possibility of doubt. Those large hazel eyes alone would have given a charm to the plainest face, and in this face there was no fault to be redeemed. ‘You seem to be much attached to my cousin, Miss Malcolm,’ Mr. Treverton said presently. ‘I love him dearly,’ she answered, looking up at him with those deep, dark eyes, which had a melancholy expression to-night. ‘I have had no one else to care for since I was quite a child; and he has been very good to me. I should be something worse than ungrateful if I did not love him as I do.’ ‘And yet your life must have been a trying one, as the sole companion of an old man of Jasper Treverton’s eccentric temper. I speak of him as I have heard him described by my father. You must have found existence with him rather troublesome now and then, I should think.’ ‘I very soon learnt to understand him, and to bear all the little changes in his humour. I knew that his heart was noble.’ ‘Humph!’ thought John Treverton. ‘Women can do these things better than men. I couldn’t stand being shut up with a crusty old fellow for a week.’ And after having made this reflection, he thought that no doubt Miss Malcolm was of the usual type of sycophants and interlopers, able to endure anything in the present for the chance of a stupendous advantage in the future, able to wait for the fruition of her hopes with a dull, grovelling patience. ‘This appearance of grief is all put on, of course,’ he said to himself. ‘I am not going to think any better of her because she has fine eyes.’