Elizabeth scoffed at the idea, protesting that most men were mere youths at sixty. "Just think of Gladstone," she cried. (That eminent statesman was a favourite weapon to use against her father when he talked of his age, though, truth to tell, his longevity was the one thing about him that she found admirable). "Father, I should be ashamed to say that I was done at sixty."
Albeit she was sadly anxious, and got up several times in the night to listen at her father's door.
He came down to breakfast next morning looking much as usual, but when he rose from the table he complained of faintness, and the pinched blue look on his face made Elizabeth's heart beat fast with terror as she flew to telephone for the doctor. A nurse was got, and for a week James Seton was too ill to worry about anything; but the moment he felt better he wanted to get up and begin work again.
"It's utter nonsense," he protested, "that I should lie here when I'm perfectly well. Ask the doctor, when he comes to-day, if I may get up to-morrow. If he consents, well and good; but if he doesn't, I'll get up just the same. Dear me, girl," as Elizabeth tried to make him see reason, "my work will be terribly in arrears as it is."
Elizabeth and Buff were in the drawing-room when the doctor came that evening. It was a clear, cold March night, and a bright fire burned on the white hearth; pots of spring flowers stood about the room, scenting the air pleasantly.
Buff had finished learning his lessons and was now practising standing on his head in the window, his heels perilously near the plate glass. Both he and Elizabeth were in great spirits, the cloud of their father's illness having lifted. Elizabeth had been anxious, how anxious no one knew, but to-night she welcomed the doctor without a qualm.
"Come to the fire, Dr. Nelson," she said; "these March evenings are cold. Well, and did you find Father very stiff-necked and rebellious? He is going to defy you and get up to-morrow, so he tells me. His work is calling him—but I don't suppose we ought to allow him to work for a time?"
Then the doctor told her that her father's work was finished.
With great care he might live for years, but there was serious heart trouble, and there must be no excitement, no exertion that could be avoided: he must never preach again.
*****