Busybodies who came to the house declared that the young man had too many doctors, too many nurses, and had taken too many remedies. Those who knew best, however, were perfectly aware that his death was inevitable.
The fiat had gone forth, and no medical skill could arrest the approach of death—Herbert sank to his last sleep in his father’s arms. Lord Ethalwood was left alone in the world.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE SOLITARY STUDENT—THE FALL OF AN ANCESTOR—HIS RESTORATION BY PEACE.
The melancholy series of events which we have recorded in the two preceding chapters occurred long before the period in which the action of our story takes place.
Let us now follow the thread of our narrative.
We have already signified that Lord Ethalwood returned to Broxbridge Hall very shortly after the servants’ party, at which our hero had played no insignificant part.
In a small room, called the study, “a thin, tall, aristocratic man, of three-score years and ten,” is seated; around the walls of the apartment are ranged glass bottles, crucibles, together with a variety of other articles, emblematical of a chemical laboratory. The solitary occupant of the studio might be taken for a necromancer of the middle ages, so spectral and weird-like is he in appearance; and at times his deep-sunken eyes seem to light up and flash with unwonted fire, while at others they are cold, inexpressive, and passionless.
His long bony fingers are busily occupied in reaching ever and anon some ponderous volume, the pages of which he scans with a curious and absorbing interest.
This old man is Lord Ethalwood, who, despite his years and the sorrow they have brought, is still firm and vigorous—still full of active intellectual life.