he baronet. "Doctor, what can we
do?"

The medical man looked very grave.

"We must keep him as quiet as possible," he replied; "but it's a bad
case. He's a bad subject, unhappily, because of his intemperate habits.
I hope we shall reduce the fever; but what I fear most is the after
exhaustion."

"Oh!" exclaimed Lady Oldfield, "if he would only know us--if he would
only speak rationally--if he would only keep from these dreadful
ramblings about spirits and drinking! It breaks my heart to hear him
speak as he does. Oh! I could bear to lose him now, though we have
just found him, if I could only feel that he was coming back, like the
poor prodigal, in penitence to his heavenly Father."

"You must calm yourself, madam," said the doctor; "we must hope that it
will be so. Remember, he is not responsible for the words he now
utters; they are only the ravings of delirium."

"Yes; _he_ is not responsible for the words he now utters," cried the
poor mother--"but oh, misery, misery! I am responsible. _I_ held him
back, _I_ laughed him from his purpose, when he would have pledged
himself to renounce that drink which has been his bane and ruin, body
and soul."

"Come, come, my dearest wife," said her husband, "you must be comforted.
You acted for the best. We are not responsible for his excess. He
never learned excess from us."

"No; but I cannot be comforted, for I see--I know that he might now have
been otherwise. Ay, he might now have been as the Oliphants are, if his
own mother had not put the fatal hindrance in his way. Oh, if I had
worlds to give I would give them, could I only undo that miserable
past!"

"I think," said the medical man, "it will be wiser if all would now
leave him except the nurse. The fewer he sees, and the fewer voices he
hears, the less he will be likely to excite himself. I will call early
again to-morrow."

Lady Oldfield retired to her chamber, and poured out her heart in
prayer. Oh, might she have but one hour of intelligence--one hour in
which she might point her erring child to that loving Saviour, whom she
had herself sought in earnest and found in truth since the departure of
her son from home! Oh, might she but see him return to the Gatherer of
the wandering sheep! She did not ask life for him--she dared not ask it
absolutely; but she did ask that her heavenly Father would in pity grant
her some token that there was hope in her beloved child's death, if he
must die.