Poor Ralph had been for many weeks steeped in melancholy; his outlook, habitually sombre, lay under the shadow of a deeper cloud.
He had grown anxious about his father, whose gout, hitherto confined to his legs, had begun to ascend into regions more vital.

The old man had been gravely ill in the spring, and the doctors had whispered to Ralph that another attack would be less easy to deal with.

Just now he appeared disburdened of pain, but Ralph could not rid himself of a suspicion that this was a subterfuge of the enemy, who was waiting to take him off his guard.

If the manoeuvre should succeed there would be little hope of any great resistance.

Ralph had always taken for granted that his father would survive him--that his own name would be the first grimly called.