We did not say a word all the time, though we were nearly three hours on the way. Then came the familiar Cambridge streets--then he rose and whispered something to the coachman on the box; we subdued our pace immediately, and quietly drew up at the well-known door. Our younger servant, Mary, was looking from it eagerly--when she saw us, she left it open and ran in--I suppose to say I had come. He helped me to alight, and I went in. I went slowly though I was so near. I wanted to see some one else first--some one else before I saw my father. At the foot of the stairs, Alice met me; she came up to me, joy struggling with her gravity to kiss and bless me, as she had been used to do. I turned away from her with a harsh and forbidding gesture, and would not let her touch me. Her eyes filled with tears--her cheeks reddened and grew pale again. She muttered something in a confused and troubled undertone, of which I only heard the word "pardon!" and then she said in a voice which a great effort made steady and articulate--"Your father waits you, Miss Hester; will you come?" I followed her in silence. I did not know what I was to say, or how to behave to my father. My heart swelled as though it would break, when I went along the familiar passages, where I had come and gone so lately in the gladness of my youth. I had a dull, heavy, throbbing pain in my forehead, over my eyes; but I followed her firmly, without a word. My father's bed-chamber looked only upon the ivy-covered wall of the close, and upon some gardens beyond it. The sun never came in there, and it was dim at all times; how much dimmer on this dreary morning, when there was no sunshine even on the open plains. There was a fire in the grate, but it burned dull like everything else. Before I looked at my father, I had taken in all the little accessories around him in one glance. The bottles upon the table, the drinks they were giving him, even the gleam of the wet ivy upon the top of the wall. My father himself lay, supported by pillows, breathing hard and painfully, and was very pale, but with a hectic spot burning on his cheek. He put out his thin white hand to me as I approached him. The diamond, a strange token of his former self, still shone upon his finger; it caught my eye in the strange torpor and dulness of my thoughts--and in this hour of extremity I remember wondering why he still chose to wear this favorite ring. "You have come home in time, Hester," he said faintly. I put off my bonnet, and sat down beside him. My face and my heart were still quite dull. I do not think I expressed any emotion. I spoke only to Alice, and to her as coldly as if she had been a perfect stranger. "Will you tell me what he must have--show me the things; and if you please, leave us alone."