Late that night the two visitors were called to Sir Giles’ room. “He is awake and seems to know everybody; I should like you to see him now,” Patty said, going herself to Mrs. Osborne’s room to call her. Colonel Piercey was walking up and down in the hall, with an air of examining the old family pictures, which Patty had not thought it necessary to meddle with, though she had removed those that had been in the library. He was not really looking at them, except as accessories to the scene--silent witnesses of the one that was passing away, and the other that was about to come. Gerald Piercey had a deep sadness in his heart, though he could not keep his thoughts from the new life that was before him. The very warmth of the rising of that new life and all its hopes made him feel all the more the deep disappointment and loss in which the other was ending. Poor Gervase would never have been a fit representative of the Pierceys, but as Margaret said, as she had always said, he was his father’s son, and the object of all the hopes of the old pair who had reigned so long in Greyshott. And now this branch was cut off, their line ended, and the old tree falling that had flourished so long. He wondered if it would really be any comfort to poor old Sir Giles, dying alone in his desolate house, that there were still Pierceys to come after him: the same blood and race, though not drawn from his source. It seemed questionable how far he would be comforted by this; perhaps not at all, perhaps rather embittered by the fact that it was a cousin’s son and not his own, who should now be the head of the house. “Come now, come now,” cried Patty eagerly, “as long as he is so conscious and awake. He sleeps most of his time, and it’s quite a chance--quite a chance. I want you to see with your own eyes that he’s all himself, and has his faculties still.” She had an air of excitement about her perhaps not quite appropriate to the moment, as if her nerves were all in motion, and she could scarcely keep her fingers still or subdue the quiver in her head and over all her frame. She led the way hurriedly, opening the doors one after another in an excited way, and pushing into the sick room with a “Look, dear papa, who I’ve brought to see you.” Sir Giles was sitting up in his bed, his large ashy face turned towards the door, his dim sunken eyes looking out from fold upon fold of heavy eyelid, his under-lip hanging as that of poor Gervase had done. “Ah,” he stammered, “let ’em come in--to the light, my dear. I’m not in a state--to see strangers; but to please you--my dear.” “Uncle Giles,” said Margaret, with an exclamation of pain, “surely you know me?”