“But I want you to dress as sharp as you can. Your father is unwell.”
“Unwell?” repeated the boy, shivering. “You do not mean he is dead?”
“No—no; but ill. He has had a stroke. Dr Brandram is with him. I thought it better not to wait till the morning before fetching you.”
“Mother—does she know?”
“By this time.”
“Why ever did we not go back?” groaned the boy. “Is there any hope, Armstrong?”
“Some—yes. Go to your mother and tell her so. The carriage will be ready in five minutes.”
In five minutes the boy and his mother descended to the hall, where already their host and hostess were down to bid them farewell. It was difficult to imagine that the slender dark-eyed handsome woman, who stood there and looked round for a moment so white and trembling and bewildered, was really the mother of the young man on whose arm she leant. Even under a blow such as this Mrs Ingleton belied her age by a decade. She was still on the sunny side of forty. You and I might have doubted if she was yet thirty.
Captain Curtice and his wife had the true kindness to attempt no words as they sympathisingly bade their visitors farewell. When the hall-door opened and let in the cold blast, the poor lady staggered a moment and clung closer to her son’s side. Then abandoning composure to the wintry winds, she found her best refuge in tears, and let herself be led to the carriage.
The tutor helped to put her in, and looked inquiringly at his pupil.