"I am so glad you have come, Henrietta," said Mrs. Wilmot, as she kissed her visitor. "I have been in such anxiety to see you. A message was sent early this morning from Mr. Foljambe--you know Wilmot's friend, Mr. Foljambe the banker, of Portland-place--requesting that he would go to him at once. The poor old man has the gout again very badly. Since then a note has come; written by himself too, and hardly legible. Poor creature! I'm sure he is in horrid pain. Here it is. You see he says, 'the enemy is advancing on the citadel'--he means his heart or his stomach, I suppose--and he entreats Wilmot to go to him at once. What ought I to do, Henrietta?" "You must tell him, of course, that Mr. Wilmot is out of town. I should not say he was so far away as Scotland; I think the mere idea is enough to terrify a nervous old man with a superstition in favour of a particular doctor." "Yes, yes, you are right; so it is. But about Wilmot. Of course he will not like to leave Sir Saville's friends. He thinks more of Sir Saville than of any one in the world, I do believe." "Hardly more, Mabel, than of his reputation and Mr. Foljambe, I should think. Why, this Mr. Foljambe is the oldest friend he has in the world--his godfather, his father's friend,--a childless old man, without kith or kin in the world, who may leave him a fortune any day, and is certain to leave him something very handsome! He would never be so mad or so ungrateful--is he of an ungrateful disposition, Mabel?" "I don't know exactly," said Mrs. Wilmot, as her colour deepened, and tears rose to her dark gray eyes. "If he _has_ any feeling, it is certainly for his friends--at least he wastes none of it on _me_." "You are always brooding over that, Mabel," said her cousin, "and it is labour and sorrow wasted. No man is worth being miserable about, dear, and Wilmot is no more worth it than his neighbours. Besides, this is a matter of business, you know, and we must look at it so. You had better telegraph at once, I think. Put on your bonnet, and come to the office; don't trust to a servant, and don't lose time. The message will take some time to reach him, at the quickest. I fancy Kilsyth is a long way from any station." Her practical tone had a beneficial effect on Mabel. Besides, she brightened at the hope, the expectation of Wilmot's return before the appointed time. The two ladies drove to Charing-cross, and Mabel telegraphed to Wilmot: "_Mr. Foljambe is dangerously ill. Come at once_." CHAPTER V. A Resolve, and its Results. The illness of Madeleine Kilsyth engrossed the attention and engaged the sympathy of her father so completely, and so entirely blinded him to other considerations, that when he chanced to encounter a servant on his way to Wilmot's room, in whose hand he recognised the ominous yellow cover which indicated a telegraphic despatch, he immediately accompanied the man to the door. He then hardly gave his guest time to peruse the message before he said impetuously: