"Is there anything more I can do, sir?" Cyril asked Mr. Harvey.
"Nothing more. You will understand, sir, what our feelings are, and
that our hearts are too full of grief and emotion for us to speak. We
shall watch together to-night, and lay our case before the Lord."
"Then I will come early in the morning and see if there is aught I
can do, sir. I am going back now to Mr. Wallace, who was uneasy at
your absence. I suppose you would wish me to say only that I found
that there was a robber in the place who, having wounded your
servant, was on the point of attacking you when I entered, and that
he fled almost immediately."
"That will do. Say to him that for to-night we shall be busy nursing,
and that my wife is greatly shaken; therefore I would not that he
should come round, but I pray him to call here in the morning."
"I will do so, sir."
Cyril went downstairs, closed the shutters of the window into which
he had broken, and put up the bars, and then went out at the door,
taking special pains to close it firmly behind him.
He was glad to be out of the house. He had seen many sad scenes
during the last few weeks, but it seemed to him that this was the
saddest of all. Better, a thousand times, to see a son stricken by
the Plague than this. He walked slowly back to the minister's. He met
Mr. Wallace at the door of his house.
"I was coming round," the latter said. "Of course one or other of
them are stricken?"
"No, sir; it was another cause that prevented their coming.
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