"Well, he was a friend to my lady, and she was set on the match."
"And you let her rule you! And you allow this same friend of hers to stay at your house in your absence and give orders to your servants and shut your daughter up in her own room and half starve her, while you are sent away on a wild-goose chase and made the scorn of the whole country."
Sir Julius turned red and white, and seemed not to know what to say.
"Well, Lucy Corbet, what is it?" said Lady Thornyhaugh, turning to me.
"Amabel is awake, madam!" said I. I could not bring myself to speak to Sir Julius. "She knows her father is here, and desires to see him, and I do not think there is any time to be lost."
"She is not so bad as that, surely!" said Sir Julius, turning pale.
"She is at death's door!" was the answer. "I have sent for another doctor from Newcastle. If he fails, all hope is over."
Amabel did, indeed, look like a body from which the breath had departed, as we entered the room. She smiled faintly as her father kissed her, but did not try to speak. I gave her a little wine and she opened her eyes and fixed them on Sir Julius with a look which must have gone to his heart, it was so full of love and of sorrow.
"Daughter, don't you know me?" said he, almost choked with grief, yet striving to command himself. "Speak to me, my love! Do you not know me?"
She made a faint sign of assent, and pressed his hand, but she could not speak.