"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..