A good deal more passed in this strange meeting than I can write down. It is enough to say that it was late in the day when they were all four, with sundry portions of luggage, driven up to the door of John's boarding-house, where we must leave them to talk over the plans which had been mapped out, and to say as much or as little about the past as it pleased them.
Walter Wilson was deplorably ill. After a day or two in London, taking the rest rendered absolutely necessary by a state of exhaustion into which he sank on reaching the temporary lodgings provided for him—which exhaustion was probably increased by the sudden excitement caused by his meeting with John Tincroft and his cousin; and after another day or two partly spent in conferences with his lawyer—he travelled by short stages to John's home. His daughter and Tincroft were his travelling companions, Sarah having gene on before to make all needful preparations.
Tincroft House was ready to receive the visitors, therefore; and the sick man was at once installed in his state apartments, while the wondering and half-frightened little Australian bird, called Helen, had taken possession of her beautified bower.
All these arrangements were quietly submitted to, rather than actively acquiesced in and assisted, by Wilson, who was in fact, too ill to make difficulties, if he had any to make, and who was glad enough to rest his shattered frame. As to Helen, she was with her father; and if her accommodations had been far less inviting, they would have been good enough, and only too good for her, she said. Nevertheless, she was impressed with their magnificence.
"If you had only seen my poor little room in our old log-house, as I remember it at first," said she to Sarah.
By the way, Sarah's simple-heartedness had already found its way to the girl's feelings.
"She isn't like my mother, not at all," Helen said to herself; "but then, nobody could be, or ever was, like dear mother—" and here her tears began to flow; "but Mrs. Tincroft is so good to me, and does everything she can think of for poor father, that I can't help liking her."
It was quite true that Walter Wilson had received, and was receiving, all the attention from both John and Sarah that could have been shown had he been a very dear brother. His apartments were studiously and carefully kept at an equable temperature; his table was supplied with all such delicacies as would be likely to tempt a sick man's appetite, or to create it. The best medical advice in Trotbury had been invoked on his behalf, and the doctor visited him every day.
Helen was with her father the greater part of the day, reading to him if he could bear it, and silently waiting on him when his nerves were unstrung, and his distressing paroxysms of weakness came on.
The establishment at Tincroft House was enlarged now by the addition of another female domestic; and more frequent calls were made at its gates by that benevolent race who delight to supply, and even to anticipate and forestall, the animal requirements of their fellows. No doubt, the wants were even now moderate enough; but, excepting when Grigson or two, or a small flock of the species, as the case might be, had alighted on the premises for a few days—