"Not with cold, Allan."
"Poor mother! Is he very ill? Is it really so serious?"
"It could not be more serious, Allan. They thought this morning that he was dying. They told me—to be prepared—for the worst."
The sentence was broken by sobs. She hid her face on her son's breast and sobbed out her grief unchecked by him, only soothed by the gentle pressure of his arm surrounding and, as it were, protecting her from the invincible enemy.
"Doctors are such alarmists, mother; they often take fright too soon."
"Not in this case, Allan; I was with him all through his sufferings. I saw him struggling with death. I knew how near death was in those dreadful hours. It is his heart, Allan. You remember Dr. Arnold's death—how we have cried over the story in Stanley's book. It was like that—sudden, intense suffering. Yesterday he was sitting in his library, placid and at ease among his books. We dined together last night. He was cheerful and full of interesting talk. And this morning at daybreak he was fighting for his life. It was terrible."
"But the danger is past, mother. The struggle is over, please God, and he will be well again."
"Never, never again, Allan. The doctors hold out little hope of that. The awful agony may return at any hour. The mischief is deep seated. We have been living in a fool's paradise. Oh, my dear son, I never knew how fondly I have loved your father till to-day. I thought we should grow old together, go down to the grave hand-in-hand."
"Dear mother, hope for the best. I cannot think—remembering how young a man he seemed the other day at Beechhurst—I cannot think that we are to lose him."
Tears were streaming down Allan's cheeks, tears of which he was unconscious. He dearly loved the father whose mild affection had made his childhood and youth so smooth and easy, the father who had understood every youthful desire, every unexpressed feeling, who in his tenderness and forethought had been as sympathetic as a loving woman.