"Ay, and has been amidst it for years, you see. Well--I led Moore on, saying this, and asking the other, and he opened his mind a bit. The disease was in me always, he thinks, Karl, and must have come out, sooner or later. It was only a question of time. I have said so myself of late. But I did not look to follow the little olive branch quite so quickly." "We may keep you here a long while yet, Adam. It is still possible, I hope, we may keep you for good. Moore has not said to the contrary." "You think he knows it, though?" Karl was really not sure. His own opinion was this--that Adam had less chance of getting well where he was than he would have had under those of the London faculty, whose specialty embraced that class of disease. "Shall you put on mourning for me, old fellow? It will be a risk, won't it? I shan't care to be held up to the world as Adam Andinnian, dead, any more than I do, alive. You'll not care to say, either, 'This black coat is worn for that brother of mine: the mauvais sujet who set the world all agog with his scandal.'" What kind of a mood was Sir Adam in this morning? Karl's grave eyes questioned it. One of real, light, careless mockery?--or was it an underlying current of sadness and regret making itself too uneasily felt in his heart? "Don't, Adam. It jars on every chord and pulse. You and I have cause to be at least more sober than other men." "What have I said?" cried Sir Adam, half laughing. "That you may have to put on mourning for me. It is in the nature of things that the elder should go before the younger. You look well in black, too, Karl; men with such faces as yours always do." "I hope it will be a long while before I have to wear it," sighed Karl, perceiving how hopeless it was to change his brother's humour. "I'd bet Foxwood with you that it will be before Christmas." "Adam, is it right to speak in this way?" "Is it particularly wrong?" "Why do you do it?" "Need of change, I suppose. I have had a solemn night of it, old fellow: and I hardly know yet whether I was asleep or awake. It was somewhat of both, I expect: but I thought I was amidst the angels. I can see them now as they looked; a whole crowd of them gathered about my bed. And, Karlo, when a man begins to dream of angels, and not to be able to decide afterwards whether it be a dream or a shadowed reality, it is a pretty sure sign, I take it, that no great time will elapse before he is with them." Before Karl left, Adam had talked himself into a doze. With his worn and haggard face turned to the wall, he slept as peacefully as a child. Karl stole away, and went into the greenhouse. Rose was there amid the plants; the sunlight shining on her beautiful hair turned it into threads of gold. She lifted her white face, with its sad expression. "I knew you were with him, Karl, so I did not come in. Don't you think he looks very, very ill this morning." "Yes, he certainly does. He is asleep now." "Asleep! In the daytime!"