When the doctor whom Lucy had sent for, saw him, he could only shrug his
shoulders.

'I'm afraid nothing can be done,' he said. 'His heart is all wrong, and
he's thoroughly broken up.'

'Is there no chance of recovery?'

'I'm afraid all we can do is to alleviate the pain.'

'And how long can he live?'

'It's impossible to say. He may die to-morrow, he may last six months.'

The doctor was an old man, and his heart was touched by the sight of
Lucy's grief. He had seen more cases than one of this kind.

'He doesn't want to live. It will be a mercy when death releases him.'

Lucy did not answer. When she returned to her father, she could not
speak. He was apathetic and did not ask what the doctor had said. Lady
Kelsey, hating the thought of Lucy and her father living amid the
discomfort of furnished lodgings, had written to offer the use of her
house in Charles Street; and Mrs. Crowley, in case they wanted complete
solitude, had put Court Leys at their disposal. Lucy waited a few days
to see whether her father grew stronger, but no change was apparent in
him, and it seemed necessary at last to make some decision. She put
before him the alternative plans, but he would have none of them.

'Then would you rather stay here?' she said.

He looked at the fire and did not answer. Lucy thought the sense of her
question had escaped him, for often it appeared to her that his mind
wandered. She was on the point of repeating it when he spoke.

'I want to go back to the Purlieu.'

Lucy stifled a gasp of dismay. She stared at the wretched man. Had he
forgotten? He thought that the house of his fathers was his still; and
all that had parted him from it was gone from his memory. How could she
tell him?

'I want to die in my own home,' he faltered.

Lucy was in a turmoil of anxiety. She must make some reply. What he
asked was impossible, and yet it was cruel to tell him the whole truth.

'There are people living there,' she answered.

'Are there?' he said, indifferently.

He looked at the fire still. The silence was dreadful.

'When can we go?' he said at last. 'I want to get there quickly.'

Lucy hesitated.

'We shall have to go into rooms.'

'I don't mind.'

He seemed to take everything as a matter of course. It was clear that he
had forgotten the catastrophe that had parted him from Hamlyn's Purlieu,
and yet, strangely, he asked no questions. Lucy was tortured by the
thought of revisiting the place she love