‘If something I should like very much took place, I should certainly ask my father to let me take up my abode at the Abbey. Who knows, Avice, under what circumstances you may go first to Wellfield Abbey?’ They found themselves opposite the _Vier Jahreszeiten_. Jerome looked at his watch. ‘I tell you what, young lady, we have consumed no end of time in this discussion. My father will think himself ill-used. We promised to walk with him at twelve. Come and let us find him.’ They went into the hall, and an attendant hurried up to them, only to say that Mr. Wellfield the elder had been taken very ill while reading his newspapers before rising, that a doctor had been sent for, and that he lay now between life and death. Jerome and his sister hastened upstairs, and found their father in alternate convulsions of pain and intervals of utter, swooning unconsciousness. The doctor came, and after a very short examination pronounced the attack to be a most serious one. A Sister of Mercy from a neighbouring institution was sent for. Hours of suspense and anxiety passed before the delirious anguish of the patient at all abated. The dusk of evening had fallen, when the doctor, coming into the salon, found Jerome and Avice seated together in the window; the girl’s head pillowed on her brother’s knee, her hand in his. ‘Your father is now composed, and perfectly sensible,’ said the doctor. ‘He is very anxious to speak to you alone,’ he added, to Jerome. ‘The Sister will wait in the ante-room. Call her if there is the least need for help. She knows what to do. I will look in again about midnight.’ With a brief good-evening he was gone; and Jerome, rising, went to his father’s room. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. FATHER AND SON ARRANGE ACCOUNTS. A LAMP was brightly burning in the sick-room, with a shade over it, and so placed as not to dazzle the invalid’s eyes. The Sister had left the room when Jerome entered; and there was a stillness as of death over everything. Jerome went up to the bedside, and stooped over the motionless figure lying back, nerveless and exhausted, after the agonies of pain which had shaken the already feeble frame. The face upon which the lamplight shone was, or had been, a fine one, as regarded features. These bore little resemblance to those of his son, though they, like Jerome’s, were finely cut, pale, and clear. Now, they were wasted and waxen in their languid weariness. A high, somewhat bald forehead, a long, slender, grey moustache gave a thoroughly un-English appearance to the whole countenance. As Jerome’s hands pressed the bedclothes, and he stooped without speaking over the pillow, the large closed eyelids were raised, and a pair of strange bright blue eyes were discovered, such eyes as are often the token of a cool, self-seeking disposition—eyes which contained a light and a life which not even this day of mortal pain had been able utterly to quench.