"Dad dear!"
Lightly she placed her hand on her father's arm.
"Oh, dad dear, never mind; we can take them away with us, and you will not be separated from them."
There was no movement, no response, and a sudden ghastly fear clutched at Sidney's heart—a fear which was realised a moment later, when she bent over her father and took his hand in hers. The Admiral's body was guarding his beloved guns, but his soul was beyond all earthly treasures. At first she could not believe it. She rushed back to the house and summoned her uncle and the servants.
"Father has fainted; he is ill! Come quick-quick!"
The Major was on the spot first, in spite of his lame leg. He groaned when he saw his brother, and exclaimed:
"These confounded guns! I wish I'd told him last night. I knew it would upset him!"
Carefully and tenderly the Admiral was carried into the house and laid upon his bed. The doctor was not long in coming, but he could do nothing—only testified that it was sudden failure of the heart. He asked if he had been agitated in any way. Sidney was too dazed and stunned to reply, but Mrs. Urquhart was voluble with explanations:
"He has been a month in London, and it evidently has been quite too much for him. He has always led such a very quiet life that the rush and excitement and fatigue of it up there has told upon him. I noticed how grey and drawn his face was when he returned yesterday. I said to my husband that it was a pity his daughter had not brought him home before. Of course, she would have done so, poor girl, if she had known the harm town life was doing him, but he doted on her, and you know how thoughtless young people are when they are enjoying themselves; they don't realise that the old cannot keep pace with them."
Sidney heard all this as in a dream. She did not take it in.