"I shall have to try a change of air again soon, I am afraid." I was just going to ask Charles what he had been doing walking about in his socks the night before, when the door opened, and Ralph, whose absence I had not noticed, came in.

He looked much perturbed.

It seemed his father had been taken suddenly and alarmingly ill while dressing.

In a moment all was confusion.

Evelyn precipitately left the room to go to him, while Charles rushed round to the stables to send a groom on horseback for the nearest doctor.