"Where is Master Humphrey?" repeated the baronet.
"They told me not to say," began little Miles; but his father was looking directly at one of the gardeners, and the man was obliged to answer.
"If you please, Sir Everard, we carried Master Duncombe in there," pointing to the drawing-room.
"In there!" said the baronet, amazed.
"If you please, Sir Everard, it was the first room we came to; and the only one where there was a sofa."
Before he had done speaking, Sir Everard was in the room. A shutter had been opened, and there was just light enough for him to see Virginie bending over the sofa, round which was a group of people.
The doctor came forward from among them, but Sir Everard pushed past him, and advanced to the side of the sofa.
And there, under his mother's picture, colorless, motionless, and to all appearance lifeless, lay the boy for whom "no punishment could be severe enough," and whose disobedience he had felt he never could forgive!