Mrs. Lintern was already putting on her clothes. "You'd best to go back," she said. "I'll be up over at once, after I've waked up my son and sent him riding for doctor." Fifteen minutes later Heathman, still half asleep, cantered on a pony through a rainy night for medical help, and his mother hastened up to 'The White Thorn,' and steeled her heart for what she might find there. She had long learned to conceal all emotion of spirit, and she knew that under no possible stress of grief or terror would truth have power to escape the prison of her heart. CHAPTER XI The accident of a heavy cold had suddenly aggravated the morbid condition of Nathan Baskerville's throat, and set all doubt of the truth at rest. Often on previous occasions he had anticipated death at short notice, and prepared to face it; but now he trusted fate not to deal the final blow before his daughter's marriage. His only concern was to be on his feet again swiftly, that none of the plans for the wedding should be changed. The doctor warned him that he was very ill, and took the gravest view of his condition; but Nathan, out of a sanguine heart, declared that he would make at least a transient recovery. He obeyed the medical man's directions very carefully, however; he kept his bed and put himself into the hands of the parish nurse. In sombre triumph she came to this important case, and brought with her certain errors of judgment and idiosyncrasies of character that went far to counter-balance real ability begot of experience. She was a good nurse, but an obstinate and foolish woman. No more conscientious creature ruled a sick room or obeyed a doctor's mandate; but she added to her prescribed duties certain gratuitous moral ministrations which were not required by science or demanded by reason. Mrs. Lintern saw Mr. Baskerville often, and sometimes shared the night watches with Eliza Gollop. The latter viewed her attentions to Nathan and her emotion before his suffering with a suspicious eye. But she reserved comment until after the end. The case was not likely to be a long one in her opinion. For one week little happened of a definite character, and during that time Nathan Baskerville saw his relations and several of his more intimate friends. Then ensued a malignant change, and at the dawn of this deterioration, after the doctor had left him, Miss Gollop sat alone with her patient and endeavoured to elevate his emotions. "I've flashed a bit of light on a wandering soul at many a deathbed," she declared; "and I hope I shall be spared to do so at many more. There's not a few men and women that wouldn't hear me in health, but they listened, meek as worms, when the end was in sight, and they hadn't strength left to move an eye-lash. That's the time to drive truth home, Mr. Baskerville, and I've done it. But always cheerful, mind. I'm not the sort to give up hoping." "I'm sure not," he whispered. "Wasn't Christ's first and last message hope?"