The husband, carried from the field, was not heard of more for nearly two years, when he suddenly re-appeared in England, claimed and received his honours, titles, and estates, and wedded into a rich and noble house. His first and deserted wife, forced by her brother to countenance a report of her own death, brought forth a son in secret; and the rest of the tale, as it was told to Alice Herbert, the reader must have already gathered. There was a part of it, however, which was not told then, and which will be noticed, perhaps, hereafter; but it was a part which involved the whole history of those steps which had been taken for several years to regain from the Earl the proofs of his first marriage; and it touched upon so much that was painful, and so much which might be imprudent to speak, that Langford was not sorry when he found that the many questions of Alice and Sir Walter, their many exclamations of pity for his mother's sorrows, and interest in her fate, the long explanations and minute details which he had to give, and the various episodes and collateral anecdotes which were required in such a history, told to such listeners, had occupied the time till they had nearly reached the spot where he had left his father, and he was compelled to leave his tale for the time incomplete. Anxious in every respect to return to the side of his sick parent, Langford gazed up at the windows of the house where he lay, as the carriage rolled heavily into the court before the old parsonage. All was still, however; and a careless horse-boy whistled in the yard while he thrust the straw on one side. Langford questioned him regarding his father's health; but the lad knew nothing on the subject, but that "there had been a rare coming and going, and seeking for the doctor, who had gone to see Betty Hinton, who had been scorched while seeking to pilfer something from the fire at the Castle." Sir Walter Herbert and the Earl's son, however, both felt that the boy's account gave a bad augury; and the Knight and his daughter remained in a vacant room below, while Langford ascended the stairs. He found some of the Earl's attendants in the outer room, and from them he learned a confirmation of his fears. His lordship, they said, was much worse, and had become so about an hour before. The doctor, they added, was then with him, as well as Mistress Bertha and the rector; but they could say nothing further as to his condition.