Toward morning the fever lowered and Leroux lay still. Streaks of a ghostly daylight crept in through the Venetian blinds and barred the floor. The nurse came to take over her watch. Sylvester gave brief instructions, and, going to his room, threw himself on his bed and slept heavily. At the moment of waking he had a sense of nightmare, was all but congratulating himself on his release; but another instant brought the full flood of memory. He rose, shaved, dressed himself as usual, and went down to breakfast. At the bottom of the stairs was a quick patter of feet and two little arms were thrown around his limbs. It was Dorothy. He started back, looked at her stupidly. Then roughly disengaging her, he thrust her aside and hurried into the breakfast room. A new and sickening doubt convulsed him. Was she his child? She came in a while later, shyly holding by the maid-servant's skirts, regarding him with scared reproach. Never had her father been cross or rough. Ungentleness from him was incomprehensible to her child's mind. “Run away upstairs,” he said, controlling his voice, then added to the servant, “Take Miss Dorothy into the nursery.” The child burst into tears, as the maid led her out. Tender-hearted a man as he was, for all the world he could not have called her back. CHAPTER V--DE MORTUIS He received his patients in the consulting-room, visited Leroux, and went on his morning rounds. On his return, he perceived Ella at the gates of Woodlands. He raised his hat and was proceeding to turn into his own little carriage drive, when she made a gesture of arrest. He pulled up, descended from the trap, and went to meet her. “How is poor Mr. Leroux? we have all been so anxious. Of course the nurse has reported, but we wanted to know from you.” “I am afraid it's a serious matter,” said Sylvester. “Do you mean that he may die?” “Possibly.” “I am so sorry,” she said, laying a sympathetic touch on his arm. “I know what a dear friend he was.” “A dear friend,” he assented grimly. “You are looking so fagged. You have been sitting up all night, I hear. Two nights.” He confessed his vigils, explained Leroux's symptoms, and gave her an authoritative report for his father. If he found any material change since the morning, he would send a message across. The topic exhausted, there was a short silence. She tried to speak, after an embarrassed glance, but his sombreness daunted her. He was taking this danger of his friend greatly to heart. “You are coming in to see Uncle Matthew some time to-day?” she asked. “It depends upon my work,” he said. “I have a great deal to occupy me.”