f you live a few more years, and I think, in the
end, you will be grateful to me.'

Nancy, sitting by the bedside, laid a hand upon her father's and sobbed.
She entreated him to believe that even now she understood how wisely he
had guided her.

'Tried to, Nancy; tried to, my dear. Guidance isn't for young people
now-a-days. Don't let us shirk the truth. I have never been satisfied
with you, but I have loved you--'

'And I you, dear father--I have! I have!--I know better now how good
your advice was. I wish--far, far more sincerely than you think--that
I had kept more control upon myself--thought less of myself in every
way--'

Whilst she spoke through her tears, the yellow, wrinkled face upon the
pillow, with its sunken eyes and wasted lips, kept sternly motionless.

'If you won't mock at me,' Stephen pursued, 'I will show you an example
you would do well to imitate. It is our old servant, now my kindest,
truest friend. If I could hope that you will let her be _your_ friend,
it would help to put my mind at rest. Don't look down upon her,--that's
such a poor way of thinking. Of all the women I have known, she is the
best. Don't be too proud to learn from her, Nancy. In all these twenty
years that she has been in my house, whatever she undertook to do, she
did well;--nothing too hard or too humble for her, if she thought it her
duty. I know what that means; I myself have been a poor, weak creature,
compared with her. Don't be offended because I ask you to take pattern
by her. I know her value now better than I ever knew it before. I owe
her a debt I can't pay.'

Nancy left the room burdened with strange and distressful thoughts. When
she saw Mary she looked at her with new feelings, and spoke to her less
familiarly than of wont. Mary was very silent in these days; her face
had the dignity of a profound unspoken grief.

To his son, Mr. Lord talked only of practical things, urging sound
advice, and refraining, now, from any mention of their differences.
Horace, absorbed in preoccupations, had never dreamt that this illness
might prove fatal; on finding Nancy in tears, he was astonished.

'Do you think it's dangerous?' he asked.

'I'm afraid he will never get well.'

It was Sunday morning. The young man went apart and pondered. After the
mid-day meal, having heard from Mary that his father was no worse, he
left home without remark to any one, and from Camberwell Green took a
cab to Trafalgar Square. At the Hotel