About an hour after, old Dulcibella came to the door and knocked. Charles Fairfield had slept a little, and was again awake. Into that still darkened room she came to whisper her message.

“Mr. Harry’s come, and he’s downstairs, and he’d like to see you, and he wanted to know whether he could see the master.”

“I’ll go down and see him; say I’ll see him with pleasure,” said Alice. “Harry is here, darling,” she said gently, drawing near to the patient, “but you can’t see him, of course.”

“I must,” whispered the invalid peremptorily.

“Darling, are you well enough? I’m sure you ought not. If the doctor were here he would not allow it. Don’t think of it, darling Ry, and he’ll come again in a few days, when you are stronger.”

“It will do me good,” whispered Charles. “Bring him—you tire me; wait, she can tell him. I’ll see him alone; go, go. Ally, go.”

She would have remonstrated, but she saw that in his flushed and irritated looks, which warned her against opposing him further.

“You are to go down, Dulcibella, and bring Sir. Harry to the room to see your master; and, Dulcibella, like a dear good creature, won’t you tell him how weak Master Charles is?” she urged, following her to the lobby, “and beg of him not to stay long.’

In a minute or two more the clank of Harry Fairfield’s boot was heard on the stair. He pushed open the door, and stepped in.

“Hullo! Charlie—dark enough to blind a horse here—all right, now. I hear you’ll be on your legs again—I can’t see you, upon my soul, not a stim a’most—before you see three Sundays—you mustn’t be tiring yourself. I’m not talking too loud, eh? Would you mind an inch or two more of the shutter open?”

“No,” said Charles, faintly. “A little.”

“There, that isn’t much. I’m beginning to see a bit now. You’ve had a stiff bout this time, Charlie, ’twasn’t typhus, nothing infectious, chiefly the upper story; but you had a squeak for it, my lad. I’d ’a came over to look after you but my hands was too full.”

“No good, Harry; could not have spoken, or seen you. Better now.”

“A bit shaky still,” said Harry, lowering his voice. “You’ll get o’er that, though, fast enough. Keeping your spirits up, I see,” and Harry winked at the decanters. “Summat better than that rot-gut claret, too. This is the stuff to put life in you. Port, yes.” He filled his brother’s glass, smelled to it, and drank it off. “So it is, and right good port. I’ll drink your health, Charlie,” he added, playfully filling his glass again.

“I’m glad you came, Harry, I feel better,” said the invalid, and he extended his thin hand upon the bed to his brother.

“Hoot! of course you do,” said Harry’, looking hard at him, for he was growing accustomed to the imperfect light. “You’ll do very well, and Alice, I hear, is quite well also. And so you’ve had a visit from the old soldier, and a bit of a row, eh?”

“Very bad, Harry. Oh! God help me,” moaned Charles.

“She ain’t pretty, and she ain’t pleasant—bad without and worse within, like a collier’s sack,” said Harry, with a disgusted grimace, lifting his eyebrows and shaking his head.

“She’s headlong and headstrong, and so there has been bad work. I don’t know what’s to be done.”

“The best thing to be done’s to let her alone,” said Harry. “They’ve put her up at Hatherton, I hear.”

“That’s one thing,” murmured Charles, with a great sigh. “I’m a heart-broken man, Harry.”

“That’s easy mended. Don’t prosecute, that’s all. Get out o’ the country when you’re well enough, and they must let her go, and maybe the lesson won’t do her no great harm............