And then all the neighbourhood for miles round were coming to a ball.

It would be impossible to send messages to everybody.

And there was the feeling too that the man was as yet only ill, and that his recovery was possible.

A ball, with a dead man in one of the bedrooms, would be dreadful.

With a dying man it was bad enough;--but then a dying man is always also a living man! Lord Rufford had already telegraphed for a first-class surgeon from London, it having been whispered to him that perhaps Old Nokes from Rufford might be mistaken.