CHAPTER XIV. THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.

CHAPTER XV. AWAY TO THE FOREST.



CHAPTER I. AN ONLY SON.


Good Squire Tufton of Gablehurst lay dying. He had been ailing for
many months, knowing his end to be near; and yet, as is so often
the case in lingering declines, death was long in coming, so that
those about him had grown used to the sight of the strong figure
wasted to a shadow, and the face shadowed by the wings of the
hovering messenger.

Some members of the household, indeed, had begun to cherish the
hope that the master might yet recover, and be seen amongst them
once more; but that hope was not shared by the patient himself, nor
by the two devoted women who nursed him with tender love.

His wife and daughter were always with him, relieving each other in
turn, and occasionally both yielding place to one of the many
faithful servants, who were all eager to do what they could for the
master they loved; but in his waking hours the squire seldom missed
the best-loved faces about him. Rachel and her mother seemed to
live their lives about his sick bed, soothing his weariness and
pain, and striving with patient resignation to school themselves to
submission to the will of God, who was about to take their loved
one from them.