loved by his domestics, and his accident, with its
consequences, although none more serious were anticipated, cast a
gloom over Lossie House. Far apart as was his chamber from all the
centres of domestic life, the pulses of his suffering beat as it were
through the house, and the servants moved with hushed voice and gentle
footfall.

Outside, the course of events waited upon his recovery, for Miss Horn,
was too generous not to delay proceedings while her adversary was
ill. Besides, what she most of all desired was the marquis's free
acknowledgment of his son; and after such a time of suffering and
constrained reflection as he was now passing through he could hardly
fail, she thought, to be more inclined to what was just and fair.

Malcolm had of course hastened to the schoolmaster with the joy of his
deliverance from Mrs. Stewart, but Mr. Graham had not acquainted him
with the discovery Miss Horn had made, or her belief concerning his
large interest therein, to which Malcolm's report of the wrath-born
declaration of Mrs. Catanach had now supplied the only testimony
wanting, for the right of disclosure was Miss Horn's. To her he had
carried Malcolm's narrative of late events, tenfold strengthening
her position; but she was anxious in her turn that the revelation
concerning his birth should come to him from his father. Hence,
Malcolm continued in ignorance of the strange dawn that had begun to
break on the darkness of his origin.

Miss Horn had told Mr. Graham what the marquis had said about the
tutorship, but the schoolmaster only shook his head with a smile, and
went on with his preparations for departure.

The hours went by, the days lengthened into weeks, and the marquis's
condition did not improve. He had never known sickness and pain
before, and like most of the children of this world counted them the
greatest of evils; nor was there any sign of their having as yet begun
to open his eyes to what those who have seen them call truths--those
who have never even boded their presence count absurdities.

More and more, however, he desired the attendance of Malcolm, who was
consequently a great deal about him, serving with a love to account
for which those who knew his nature would not have found it necessary
to fall back on the instinct of the relation between them. The marquis
had soon satisfied himself that that relation was as yet unknown to
him, and was all the better pleased with his devotion and tenderness.