An intuition, quicker than a flash of lightning, revealed to the boy that something was wrong--something in which he was concerned.

In a moment he stood with his two friends in the hall.
"Roger, my brave fellow, your mother has been taken seriously worse within the last hour.

Come and see her." The boy staggered away dazed.

He was conscious of the hum of voices, with Tom's laugh above all, in the room behind; of the long curve of carriage lights waiting in the garden without; of the trophy of flowers and pampas on either side of the staircase.

Then, as the doctor stepped forward and softly opened a door, he followed like one in a dream.
For an hour the dull roll of carriages came and went on the drive, and the cheery babel of departing voices broke the still morning air.
But two guests left Maxfield that night unexpectedly.
One was the soul of a good lady; the other was the horsewhipped body of a bad man..