"Who's come?" he asked in some confusion of mind. "Weston?"
"Not him, sir; Mr. and Mrs. Dare," replied the servant as she hurried out.
A lady and gentleman were getting out of a coach at the door. A tall, very tall man, with handsome features, but an unpleasantly free expression. The lady was tall also, stout and fair, with an imperious look in her little turned-up nose. "Are we in time?" the latter asked of the servants.
"It's nearly as much as can be said, ma'am," was the answer. "But he has roused up in the last hour, and is growing excited. The doctors thought it might be so: that he'd not continue in the lethargy to the last."
They went on at once to the sick chamber. Every sense of the dying man appeared to be on the alert. His hands were holding back the curtain, his eyes were strained on the door. "Why have you been so long?" he cried in a voice of strength they were surprised to hear.
"Dear uncle," said Mrs. Dare, bending over the bed and clasping the feeble hands, "we started the very moment the letter came. But we could not get along—the roads are dreadfully heavy."
"Sir," whispered a servant in the invalid's ear, "are we to go now for Lawyer Weston?"
"No, there's no need," was the prompt answer. "Anthony Dare, you are a lawyer," continued Mr. Cooper; "you'll do what I want done as well as another. Will you do it?"
"Anything you please, sir," was Mr. Dare's reply.
"Sit down, then; Julia, sit down. You may be hungry and thirsty after your journey; but you must wait. Life's not ebbing out of you, as it is out of me. We'll get this matter over, that my mind may be so far at rest; and then you can eat and drink of the best that my house affords. I am in mortal pain, Anthony Dare."