is there any more to be feared?"

"Everything," Lance answered; "heart chiefly, but the lungs are not
safe. He has been whirling his unfortunate machine faster and
faster, till no wonder the mainspring has all but broken down. His
ideal always was working himself to death, and only Felix could
withhold him, so now he has fairly run himself down. No rest from
that tremendous parish work, with the bothers about curates, school
boards and board schools, and the threatened ritual prosecution,
which came to nothing, but worried him almost as much as if it had
gone on, besides all the trouble about poor Alda, and the loss of
Fulbert took a great deal out of him. When Somers got a living,
there was no one to look after him, and he never took warning. So
when in that Stinksmeech Mission he breathed pestiferous air and
drank pestiferous water, he was finished up. They've got typhus down
there-—a very good thing too," he added vindictively.

"I put it further back than Mr. Somers' going," said Gertrude. "He
never was properly looked after since Cherry married. What is he to
do now?"

"Just nothing. If he wishes to live or have a chance of working
again, he must go to the seaside and vegetate, attempt nothing for
the next six months, nor even think about St. Matthew's for a year,
and, as they told me afterwards, be only able to go on cautiously
even then."

"How did he take it?"

"He laid his head against Cherry, who was standing by his chair, put