Castleridge.”

“Is there any chance of your mistress returning to-night?”

“Not if Tom Robbins knows it. He’s mighty tender of his ’orses, and a night like this—”

“Go and fetch the housekeeper at once,” said the tutor.

Raffles vanished.

Mr Armstrong was not the man to lose his head on an emergency, but now, as he bent over the helpless paralytic, and tried to read his wants in the eyes that looked up into his, he found it needed a mighty effort to pull himself together and resolve how to act.

He must go for the doctor, five miles away. There was no one else about the place who could cover the ground as quickly. But if he went, he must leave the sufferer to the tender mercies of Raffles and the housekeeper—a prospect at which Mr Armstrong shuddered; especially when the latter self-important functionary entered, talking at large, and proposing half a dozen contradictory specifics in the short passage from the door to the sick-couch.

Mr Armstrong only delayed to suggest meekly that his impression was that a warm bath would, under the circumstances, be of benefit, and then, not waiting for the contemptuous “Much you know about it” which the suggestion evoked, he set off.

It was no light task on a night like this to plough through the snow for five miles in search of help, and the lanes to Yeld were, even in open weather, none of the easiest. But the tutor was not the kind of man to trouble himself about difficulties of that sort, provided only he could find the doctor in, and transport him in a reasonable time to Maxfield.

As he passed the stables, he glanced within, on the off-chance of finding a horse available. But the place was empty, and not even a stable-boy could be made to hear his summons.

So he tramped out into the road, where the snow lay a foot deep, and with long strides carved his way through it towards Yeld. Half a mile on he overtook a country cart, heavily laden and stuck fast in the snow.

“Ah! Hodder,” said he to the nonplussed old man in charge, “you may as well give it up.”

“So I are without your telling,” growled the countryman.

“Very well; I want your horse for a couple of hours. The Squire’s ill, and I have to fetch the doctor.”

And without another word, and heedless of the ejaculations of the bewildered Hodder, he began to loose the animal’s girths.

“I’m blamed if you have a hair of him,” said the yokel.

“I don’t want one. Here!” and he pitched him a half-crown. The man gaped stupidly at the unharnessing of his beast, and began to pump up for another protest.

But before the words were ready, Mr Armstrong had led the horse out of the shafts and had vaulted on his bare back.

“Eh,” sputtered Hodder, “may I—”

“Good-bye and thanks,” said the tutor, clapping his heels to the animal’s flanks; “you shall have him back safe.”

And he plunged away, leaving the gaping son of the soil, with his half-crown in his hand, to the laborious task of hoisting his lower jaw back into its normal position.

Dr Brandram, in whose medical preserves Maxfield Manor lay, was solacing himself with an after-dinner pipe in his little cottage at Yeld, when the tutor, crusted in snow from head to foot, broke unceremoniously on his privacy. An intuition told the doctor what was the matter before even his visitor could say—

“The Squire has had a stroke. Come at once.”

The doctor put down his pipe, and, with a sigh, kicked off his cosy slippers.

“He has chosen a bad night, Armstrong. How are the roads?”

“A foot deep. Shall you drive or ride?”

“I never ride.”

“You’ll need both horses to get through, and I can lend you a spent third.”

“Thank you. How did he look?”

“He knew what had happened, I think, but could not speak or move.”

“Of course. Suppose you and I do the latter, and postpone the former till we are under weigh.”

In less than ten minutes, the doctor’s gig was trundling through the snow, with three horses to drag it, and Mr Armstrong in charge of the reins.

“Yes,” said the doctor, “he’s been leading up to this for a long time, as you have probably observed.”

“I can’t say I have,” said Mr Armstrong.

“Ah! well, you’ve only known him a year. I knew him twenty years ago.”

“Ah!” replied the tutor, chirruping encouragement to the horses.

“Roger Ingleton’s life twenty years ago was a life to make an insurance company cheerful,” said the doctor.

“What changed it?”

“He had a scape-grace son. They fell out—there was a furious quarrel—and one day the father and son—ugh!—fought, with clenched fists, sir, like two—two costermongers!—and the boy did not get the best of it. He left home, and no wonder, and was never heard of since. Faugh! it was a sickening business.”

“That explains what he was saying this afternoon about a son he had once. He was telling me about it when he was struck.”

“Ay! that blow has been owing him for twenty years. It is the last round of the fight, Armstrong. But,” continued he, “this is all a secret. No one knows it at Maxfield. I doubt if your pupil so much as imagines he ever had a brother.”

“He has never mentioned it to me,” said the tutor.

“No need that he should know,” said the doctor. “Let the dead bury his dead.”

“Is he dead, then?”

“Before the Squire married again,” said the doctor, “the poor boy went straight to the dogs, and they made an end of him. There! let’s talk of something else. I don’t know why I tell you what has never passed my lips for twenty years.”

“I wish you hadn’t,” said Mr Armstrong shortly, whipping up his horses.

The two men remained silent during most of that cold, laborious journey. The doctor’s few attempts at conversation fell flat, and he took refuge finally in his pipe. As for the tutor, he had his hands full, steering his team between the lane-side ditches, and thinking of the wrecked life that lay waiting at the journey’s end.

It was nearly ten o’clock before the dim lights of Maxfield Manor showed ahead. The snow on the home-drive was undisturbed by the wheels of any other vehicle. The mother and son had not returned, at any rate, yet.

As the two men entered, the hall was full of scared domestics, talking in undertones, and feeding on the occasional bulletin which the privileged Raffles was permitted to carry from the sick-room to the outer world.

At the sight of the doctor and Mr Armstrong, they sneaked off grudgingly to their own territories, leaving Raffles to escort the gentlemen to the scene of the tragedy.

Old Roger Ingleton lay on the sofa, with eyes half-closed, upturned to the ceiling; alive still, but no more. Cups and wine-glasses on the table near told of the housekeeper’s fruitless experiments at restoration, and the inflamed countenance of that ministering angel herself spoke ominously of the four hours during which the sufferer’s comfort had been under her charge.

The tutor, after satisfying himself that his mission had not been too late, retired to the fireplace, where he leaned dismally, and watched through his eye-glass the doctor’s examination.

After a few minutes, the latter walked across to him.

“Did you say Mrs Ingleton and the boy will not be back till the morning?”

“Probably not.”

“If so, they will be too late; he will not last the night.”

“I will fetch them,” said Mr Armstrong quietly.

“Good fellow! you are having a night of it. I shall remain here; so you can take whichever of my horses you like. The mare will go best.”

“Thanks!” said the tutor, pulling himself together for this new task.

Before he quitted the room, he stepped up to the couch and bent for a moment over the helpless form of his employer. There was no