intended to put himself to the personal
inconvenience of making frequent visits of
inquiry at the vicarage.

"Pray command me, Mr. Levincourt,"
he said, as he took his leave, " in any way.
I quite feel what an uncommon bore this
business must be for you. Though, as I
said before, Gale may think himself in luck
that he didn't get spilt on any other heap
of flint stones than the one at your door.
I'm sure I hope he'll pull through, and all
that sort of thing. You know I had only
just a kind of bowing acquaintance with
him in Rome. And then he hailed me on
the hunting-field at Stubbs's Corner the
other day, you know, and—and that sort
of thing. Hammick Lodge is twelve miles
from Shipley as the crow flies, you know,
and—and so I'm afraid I shan't be able to
look him up myself very often, you know.
But I hope you will do me the favour to
command me if there's anything in the
world my fellows can do, or—or that sort
of thing."

And then Lord George Segrave departed,
feeling that he had done all that could
reasonably be.expected of him.

Dr. Gunnery came again and again.
And Mr. Flew was unremitting in his
attentions.

The house, always quiet, was now hushed
into stillness. The piano remained closed.
Joe Dowsett ceased to whistle as he worked
in the garden. The servants stole up to
bed past the door of the guest-room,
making every board of the staircase creak
under their elaborately cautious footfall.
Paul's noiseless step glided through the
passages, and he came on you like a
ghost.

Riot and merriment are contagious. So
are silence, and the hush of suspense. But
though the vicarage was stiller than it was
wont to be, it was less dull. All the household
was conscious of a suppressed excitement,
which was merely stirring, and did
not reach to pain. Every day, every hour
of the day, presented a question whose
answer was deferred—Will he live or die?
And on the answer to this question hung
no agonised human heart—none, at least,
within that house.

Was there anywhere a breast fluttered
by hopes, oppressed by fears, for the sick
man who lay feverish and uneasy on the
stranger' s bed in Shipley vicarage?

No letters came for him. No friends
inquired.

He was discussed in the vicarage kitchen,
and in other kitchens in the neighbourhood.
He was discussed in the village ale-house,
in the farm-houses, in the tap-room and
the stables of the Crown at Shipley Magna.
He was spoken of, once or twice, at the
different meets of the West Daneshire
hunt. Lord George Segrave mentioned
that he believed Gale was going on all
right, you know, and that sort of thing.
That was a niceish nag of his, not the one
he had been riding when he was thrown,
you know; no, that little chesnut. Lord
George wouldn't mind having him. He
wondered what the figure would be. If
Gale's horses were still at the Crown, he
had a good mind to go over and have
another look at the chesnut, and to ask
Gale's groom whether he thought his
master would sell him. He supposed that
Gale had had enough of hunting in
England. He was dooced sorry for him, you
know, and that sort of thing, but what the
—- could he expect? With that seat, he
(Lord George) only wondered how Gale
had been able to stick on his saddle five
minutes! And most of the field wondered
too. For it has been observed that of all
the trials to which human candour, modesty,
and magnanimity, are ordinarily apt to be
subjected, the trial of comparing your own
riding with another man's is the one that
most frequently developes mortal frailty.

There was probably not a man who
habitually hunted with the West
Daneshire, who did not secretly nourish the
conviction that his own seat on horseback
was admirable, and that the majority of
his friends and acquaintances rode like
tailors!

Little it mattered to Sir John Gale what
was said of him in parlour, kitchen, stable,
or hunting-field. Little, perhaps, would it
ever matter to him more. For although,
as Dr. Gunnery had said, the absolute
injuries resulting from the accident were
trifling, and to a young and vigorous
constitution would have been matters of small
importance, yet in this case there seemed
to be no elasticity, or power of rebound in
the sick man's frame. A low fever took
hold of him: a dreadful insidious fever,
that might be figured as a weird phantom
invisible to the eyes of men, but with two
bony cruel hands, whose touch was terrible.
Of these hands, one was cold as ice; the
other burning, like the heart of a furnace.
Alternately the viewless fingers stroked the
sick man's body, drawing long shuddering
thrills through every limb; or clutched
him with a lingering gripe that made his
very heart sick. Now, he was consumed