Gervase, however, was too ill to be threatened the day after that dreadful vigil. He had caught cold lying out upon the moor, and he was very ill and in a high fever, quite unable to get up, or to have anything but nursing and kindness. Patty had the confidence of a woman well acquainted with the consequences of a debauch, that this would wear off in a short time and leave no particular results. She gave him beef-tea and gruel and kept him quiet, and told him, like a child, that he would be better to-morrow. “Gervase has caught a bad cold,” she told Sir Giles, “but you must not be anxious, dear papa. I am keeping him in his warm bed, and he’ll be all right to-morrow.” “Right, right, my dear,” said Sir Giles. “Bed is the best place. There is nothing like taking a cold in time, nothing like it. And we must remember he was always delicate. There’s no stamina in him, no stamina.” “He’ll be all right to-morrow,” Patty said, and she kept running up and down between the games to see if he was asleep, if he was comfortable, if he wanted anything. “Good creature!” said Sir Giles, half to himself, half to Dunning, who silently but consistently refused to appreciate Mrs. Piercey. “Now, what would you and I have done with the poor boy if he had been ill, and no wife on the spot to look after him?” “Maybe he wouldn’t have had the same thing the matter with him,” said Dunning, significantly. “Eh, what do you mean? What’s the matter with him? He’s got a bad cold,” cried Sir Giles. “There are colds and colds,” said the enigmatical Dunning. But Patty came back at the moment, saying that Gervase was quite quiet and asleep, and resumed her place for the second game. It was a longer game than usual, and Patty played badly, wishing her dear papa we will not venture to say how far off. But it came to an end at last, as everything does. “I hope you’ll have a good night, my dear, and not be disturbed with him,” the old gentleman said kindly. “Oh, I feel sure,” cried Patty, “he’ll be better to-morrow.” But, as a matter of fact, she was not at all sure. The fumes of the drink ought to have died off by that time, but the fever had not died off. He was ill, and she was frightened and did not know what to do. And instead of being better in the morning, poor Gervase was worse, and the doctor had to be sent for, to whom, after various prevarications, poor Patty was obliged to confess the truth. Impossible to look more grave than the doctor did when he heard of this. “It was enough to kill him,” he said. Patty understood (with a private reserve of vengeance against her father, who had been the cause of it) that Gervase was really ill and had escaped something still worse. But she was confident in her own powers of nursing, and did not take fright. She was really an excellent nurse, having a great deal of sense, and the habit of activity, and no fear of giving herself trouble. She devoted herself to her husband quite