“He is not, my boy,” said the doctor gravely. “We telegraphed to your mother at once, as you know—but before that telegram could have reached her your poor father—”
It was enough. Poor Horace closed his ears convulsively against the fatal word, and dropped back on his chair with a gasp.
The doctor put his hand kindly on the boy’s shoulder.
“Are you here alone?” said he, presently.
“My mother and brother will be here directly.”
“Your father lies in a private ward. Will you wait till they come, or will you go up now?”
A struggle passed through the boy’s mind. An instinctive horror of a sight hitherto unknown struggled hard with the impulse to rush at once to his father’s bedside. At length he said, falteringly,—
“I will go now, please.”
When Mrs Cruden and Reginald arrived half an hour later, they found Horace where the doctor had left him, on his knees at his father’s bedside.