“I ordered the carriage early, and it came just as you had gone out,” explained Thomas. “Feeling well, I sent it away as I had to wait, saying I would walk home. The pain overtook me just as I reached this spot, and but for the bench I should have fallen. But, George, what brings you here?” was the next very natural question. “You told me you were going to the Bell?”
“So I was; so I did,” said George, speaking volubly. “St. Aubyn I found very poorly; I told him he would be best in bed, and came away. It was a nice night; I felt inclined for a run, so I came up here to ask Verrall what had kept him from dinner. He was sent for to London, it seems, and the stupid servant took his apology to Ashlydyat, instead of to the Bank.”
Thomas Godolphin might well have rejoined, “If Verrall is away, where have you stopped?” But he made no remark.
“Have they all gone?” asked George, alluding to his guests.
“They have all gone. I made it right with them respecting your absence. My being there was almost the same thing: they appeared to regard it so. George, I believe I must have your arm as far as the house. See what an old man I am getting.”
“Will you not rest longer? I am in no hurry, as they have left. What can this pain be, that seems to be attacking you of late?”
“Has it never occurred to you what it may be?” quietly rejoined Thomas.
“No,” replied George. But he noticed that Thomas’s tone was, peculiar, and he began to run over in his own mind all the pharmacopoeia of ailments that flesh is heir to. “It cannot be rheumatism, Thomas?”
“It is something worse than rheumatism,” said Thomas, in his serene, ever-thoughtful way. “A short time, George, and you will be master of Ashlydyat.”
George’s heart seemed to stand still, and then bound onwards in a tumult. The words struck upon every chord of feeling he possessed—struck from more causes than one.