Mr. Broadbent, feeling the actual responsibility thus lifted from his shoulders, preserved a perfectly unruffled demeanour, and nodded his head in solemn corroboration. 'May I ask how you came to hear of this, Doctor Haughton?' said Martin. 'It so happened,' said the doctor, 'that I had been called in consultation to a case at--a short distance from town'--it would never do to name the exact place while this woman is present, he thought to himself--'and we were returning in the train when the discovery was made, and we at once offered our services, little thinking that the unfortunate sufferer would prove to be an acquaintance of mine.' 'Some one must go to him at once,' said Martin, looking hard at his mother. 'It is a great pity that Madame Du Tertre is not in the way just now when she is wanted,' said Mrs. Calverley, quietly; 'this seems exactly one of the occasions--' 'There is no necessity for anyone to go,' interrupted Doctor Haughton; 'all that it is possible to do has been done.' 'Do you consider Mr. Calverley to be in danger?' asked Martin, anxiously. 'In extreme danger,' replied the doctor; and then catching Mr. Gurwood's eye, he endeavoured by the action of his mouth to frame the word 'dead.' But Mrs. Calverley's steely eyes were upon him at the same moment, and she guessed his meaning. 'You are endeavouring to deceive me, Doctor Haughton,' said she with her stoniest manner; 'Mr. Calverley is dead.' 'My dear mother,' said Martin, leaving his chair, and putting his arms round her. 'I can bear it, Martin,' said Mrs. Calverley coldly; 'this is not the first time I have known suffering. My life has been one long martyrdom.' 'Is this true?' asked Martin, turning to the doctor. 'I regret to say it is,' said Doctor Haughton. 'Out of consideration for Mrs. Calverley's feelings, I endeavoured to break the news as gently as possible, but it is better that she should know the truth as she does now.' 'It is some consolation for me to think,' said Mrs. Calverley, in measured tones, 'that I never failed to utter my protest against these reckless journeys, and that if Mr. Calverley had not obstinately persisted in ignoring my advice, on that as on every other point, he might have been here at this moment.' 'What was the immediate cause of death?' asked Martin Gurwood hurriedly, for his mother's tone and manner jarred harshly on his ear. 'It is impossible to say without--without an examination,' said the doctor, lowering his voice; 'but I should say, from the mere cursory glance we had, that death probably arose from pericarditis--what you would know as disease of the heart.' 'And that might be brought on by what?' 'It would probably be the remnant of some attack of rheumatic fever under which the deceased had suffered at some period of his life. But it has probably been accelerated or increased by excess of mental excitement or bodily fatigue.'