These letters threw Maurice into a condition of discomfort and impatience, which he found hard to bear.

He was extremely uneasy at the idea of his father being left without companion or nurse.

This uneasiness formed, as it were, the background of his thoughts, while a variety of less reasonable, but more vivid, anxieties held a complete revel in the foreground.

He had not even his old refuge against troublesome fancies; for work, real absorbing work, of any kind was out of the question now.

His attendance on his grandfather, though often fatiguing enough, was no occupation for his masculine brain.