The light broke partially through the half-closed shutters of the room in which lay Lord Ulswater, who, awakened to sense and pain by the motion of the carriage, had now relapsed into insensibility. By the side of the sofa on which he was laid, knelt Clarence, bathing one hand with tears violent and fast; on the opposite side leaned over, with bald front, and an expression of mingled fear and sorrow upon his intent countenance, the old steward; while, at a little distance, Lord Westborough, who had been wheeled into the room, sat mute in his chair, aghast with bewilderment and horror, and counting every moment to the arrival of the surgeon, who had been sent for. The stranger to whom the carriage belonged stood by the window, detailing in a low voice to the chaplain of the house what particulars of the occurrence he was acquainted with, while the youngest scion of the family, a boy of about ten years, and who in the general confusion had thrust himself unnoticed into the room, stood close to the pair, with open mouth and thirsting ears and a face on which childish interest at a fearful tale was strongly blent with the more absorbed feeling of terror at the truth. Slowly Lord Ulswater opened his eyes; they rested upon Clarence. "My brother! my brother!" cried Clarence, in a voice of powerful anguish, "is it thus--thus that you have come hither to--" He stopped in the gushing fulness of his heart. Extricating from Clarence the only hand he was able to use, Lord Ulswater raised it to his brow, as if in the effort to clear remembrance; and then, turning to Wardour, seemed to ask the truth of Clarence's claim,--at least so the old man interpreted the meaning of his eye, and the faint and scarce intelligible words which broke from his lips. "It is; it is, my honoured lord," cried he, struggling with his emotion; "it is your brother, your lost brother, Clinton L'Estrange." And as he said these words, Clarence felt the damp chill hand of his brother press his own, and knew by that pressure and the smile--kind, though brief from exceeding pain--with which the ill-fated nobleman looked upon him, that the claim long unknown was at last acknowledged, and the ties long broken united, though in death. The surgeon arrived: the room was cleared of all but Clarence; the first examination was sufficient. Unaware of Clarence's close relationship to the sufferer, the surgeon took him aside. "A very painful operation," said he, "might be performed, but it would only torture, in vain, the last moments of the patient; no human skill can save or even protract his life." The doomed man, who, though in great pain, was still sensible, stirred. His brother flew towards him. "Flora," he murmured, "let me see her, I implore."