“There is a horseman galloping up the avenue, ma’am,” said Helena, glancing from the window. “Could it be his father?” A gleam of joy and relief lit up the strong face of Madam Alice Harford; she walked firmly to the front door, regardless of custom, and quite ignoring the bitter cold, peered eagerly out into the twilight.
“My son,” she cried. “Now, indeed, shall we have good hope. He still lives, Bridstock—I can’t say more than that.”
“Thank God that I am in time to see him,” said the doctor, stooping to greet his mother with tender reverence. “Nay, in truth, ma’am, I fear to see you at the door in this nipping frost; come to the fire and tell me of Gabriel.”
“He is at death’s door with the new fever, and is terribly weakened by want of food all these months, and the poisonous air of his gaol. Sir Theodore Mayerne would have more hope were it not for his exhaustion; but, indeed, I still trust in his youth and his sound constitution.”
“Let me go to him now without delay,” said the doctor, and with a heavy heart he was led to the silent room above, where lay the son he had parted from in the spring, so wasted by starvation and suffering that his own father could scarcely recognise him. Gabriel was unconscious, and Dr. Mayerne was administering a strong stimulant, in the hope of fighting off death a little longer. He greeted Dr. Harford with kindly sympathy.
“Try if your voice will rouse him,” he said. “But I fear the pulse is failing.”
Dr. Harford knelt down by the bed and bent low over the dying man.
“Gabriel,” he sard, “I have reached you at last. Look up, my son.”
In terrible suspense they watched the eyelids quiver and slowly open; there was amazed recognition in the hazel eyes.
“Father,” he whispered, “you here in prison?”