Just at this moment the lamp of life seemed to be glowing with fresh strength.
It was but the last flicker before extinction, and the wife knew it, but Rachel experienced a glow of hope that perhaps it might mean a temporary improvement.
"I will go and see if he has come," she said.

"Perchance they have found and brought him by now." She glided from the room, just giving one backward glance in so doing, when the expression on her mother's face brought a quick spasm of pain to her heart.

There was a strange conflict of feeling going on within her, as she trod the corridor with swift steps, and passed rapidly down into the hall beneath.
This hall was a great square place, with a glowing fire illuminating it, the dancing shadows falling grotesquely upon the pictured Tuftons that lined the walls, and upon the weapons which hung, together with trophies of game, between them.

In the centre of the hall was an oak table, heavily carved about the legs, and at this table stood a tall, broad-shouldered young man, clad in the stout leathern breeches and full coat of the period, tossing off a steaming tankard of some spirituous liquor, although the flush on his face, and the slightly unsteady way in which he held the vessel, seemed to indicate that he stood in no further need of strong drink.
Rachel came swiftly down the staircase, her footfall making scarcely any sound upon the shallow polished steps.
"Tom!" she exclaimed, in a voice full of repressed feeling, "how can you delay drinking here, when your father upstairs is dying, and is asking for you ?" "Dying, quotha!" returned the young man, with a foolish laugh; "methinks I have heard that tale somewhat too often to be scared by it now, sweet sister!" and he patted her shoulder with a gesture from which she instinctively recoiled.
"Tom, have you no heart?
He will not last the night through.

Got you not our messages, sent hours ago?
How can you show yourself so careless--so cruel?
But tarry no longer now you are here.