“Except about Jock,” she said, within herself; but even if she had said it aloud her father’s thoughts were too much bent on the general question to have remarked this. Ford, who was very anxious too, beckoned to her from behind the screen, and whispered, “Get him to sign it, ask him to sign it!” with the most energetic gesticulations; but how could Lucy press such a request upon her father? They were all anxious in the house that evening, and Mrs. Ford sat up all night, and her husband lay on the sofa in his clothes, fearing a midnight summons, but it was not till the next evening that the blow came. When their anxiety had been softened, and their precautions forgotten, the loud jar and tinkle of the bell once more woke little Jock in his little bed, and Ford from his comfortable slumbers; and this time it was no false alarm. Old Trevor was seized at last by the paralytic attack which had been, hovering over him for sometime. Ford going hastily for the doctor caught a bronchitis which kept him in bed for a week (just, his wife said, like a man--when he is most wanted), but the old man had his death-stroke. The house changed all at once, as sudden and dangerous illness always changes the abode it dwells in. All thought, all consideration were merged in the sick-room. For the first few days not even the affairs which he had left unsettled were thought of. The poor chilly blue-and-white drawing-room in which he had spent his days stood vacant, colder, and more commonplace than ever, yet with a pathos in its nakedness. The blotting-book, with the big blue folio projecting on every side, still lay on the writing-table where it had lain so long; but nobody touched it except the house-maid who dusted it daily, and was often tempted to take the sheaf of untidy papers to light her fire. What could it have mattered if she had lighted her fire with them? The work upon which the old man had spent so much of his fading life was of little importance now. No one thought of it except Ford, who at the worst of his bronchitis mourned over the uncompleted, document. “Will he ever come to himself, doctor? Will he ever have the use of his faculties?” he moaned; but even this no one could tell. The old man lay for more than a week in this state of unconsciousness; but after a time began to give faint indications of returning intelligence. He could not move nor speak, but his eyes regained a gleam of meaning, and very awful it was to see this reawakening, and to guess at the desires and feelings that awoke dimly, coursing like lights and shadows, a dumb language upon his countenance. One night Lucy felt that his eyes were fixed upon her with more meaning than before, and the three anxious people gathered round the bed, questioning and consulting each other.