Just outside on the hot stone steps lay the towels where Horace had dropped them five minutes ago.

Carlo, the dog, lay across the mat, and lazily lifted his head as his master approached.
Within stood Mrs Cruden, pale and trembling, with a telegram in her hand, and in the back-ground hovered three or four servants, with mingled curiosity and anxiety on their faces.
Despite the heat, Reginald shivered as he stood a moment at the door, and then sprang towards the telegram, which his mother gave into his hand.

It was from Mr Cruden's coachman, dated from Saint Nathaniel's Hospital.
"Master was took ill driving from City--brought here, where he is very bad indeed.

Doctor says no hope." One needs to have received such a message oneself to understand the emotions with which the two brothers read and re-read the pitiless words.

Nothing but their own hard breathing broke the stillness of those few minutes, and who knows in that brief space what a lifetime seemed crowded?
Horace was the first to recover his self-possession.
"Mother," said he, and his voice sounded strange and startling in the silence, "there's a train to the City in five minutes.