As if he understood her human speech--as, indeed, he did, Duke turned to precede her upstairs. On a bench in the long corridor two maid servants were seated, crying bitterly. But Joyce did not speak to them, she dared not; even the question she had asked Duke died on her lips. The door of her father's room was ajar; and as Duke pushed it open with his nose, Joyce could see the great four-post bed, her mother sitting by it, and curled up in the window-seat was Piers. The friends who had been there in the early part of the day were gone; they could do no more at Fair Acres. And Mr. Paget's aim was to set the constables to work to find the man who must have hurled a sharp stone at Mr. Falconer's head. The Wells doctor, too, was gone. He had a pressing case near Wells upon his hands, but he was to return at eight o'clock, when, it was hoped the doctor greater than himself, who had been summoned from Bristol, would have arrived. In those days help in emergency was slow to obtain. Telegrams were not dreamed of, and horsepower performed the part which steam was soon to take up; to be followed by the marvellous electric force, which now sends on the wings of the wind messages all over the world, multiplied, on the very day on which I write, to an enormous extent, by the introduction of sixpenny telegrams, which will send a call for help, or strike a note of joy, and win an immediate response from thousands. But there were no electric messages possible to get medical help for the squire, nor, indeed, would any help avail. With a great sigh, Duke resumed his watch at the foot of the high bed; and Joyce, crossing over, kissed her mother and Piers, and then gazed down upon her father. "Dear dad!" she said, inadvertently using the familiar name. "He has not spoken nor opened his eyes since we laid him here," Mrs. Falconer said. "He knows no one--no one----" "Did he tell how it happened?" "No." "It might have been that he was thrown from--from--Mavis." "No," Mrs. Falconer said again, "that could not be, they think; besides, they found a heavy stick and a tinder box close by." Presently Piers came down from his place, and Joyce put her arms round him. The boy was very calm, but great tears fell upon Joyce's hand as she pressed him close. The silent watch went on. Duke lay motionless, but his eyes were on the alert. The servants looked in sometimes, and brought Joyce and her mother some tea and cake. Joyce swallowed a cup of tea, but ate nothing. Could this be the evening of the day which dawned so brightly?--the Wrington bells chiming, the village children singing hymns, joyousness and gladness everywhere. The guests gathered round Mrs. More; the bright, intelligent conversation to which she was listening; then her own narrative of the Mendip adventure;--and this brought her to the present from the past! If her father had been assailed by a malicious miner on Mendip, that assailant was Bob Priday; of this she felt no doubt.