Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

THE COUP DE GRACE. 167
made him sit down and take coffee and smoke a cigar, and sat on
the foot-stool at his feet, before the fire, complaining of cold.
They sat an hour or two, smoking, talking of old times, of horses
and dogs, and birds and trout, as lads do, till Charles said he
would go to bed, and William left him.
He had hardly got to the end of the passage, when Charles
called him back, and he came.
"I want to look at you again," said Charles; and he put his
two hands on William's shoulders, and looked at him again. Then
he said, " Good night," and went in.
William went slowly away, and, passing to a lower story, came
to the door of a room immediately over the main entrance, above
the hall. This room was in the turret above the porch. It was
Cuthbert's room.
He kniocked softly, and there was no answer; again, and louder.
A voice cried, querulously, " Come in," and he opened the door.
Cuthbert was sitting before the fire with a lamp beside him
and a book on his knee. He looked up, and saw a groom before
him, and said, angrily, -
"I can give no orders to-night. I will not be disturbed tonight."
"It's me, sir," said William.
Cuthbert rose at once. "Come here, brother," he said, "and
let me look at you. They told me just now that you were with
our brother Charles."
" I stayed with him till he went to bed, and then I came to
you.";' How is he?"
" Very quiet, - too quiet."
"Is he going away? "
" He is going in the morning."
"You must go with him, William," said Cuthbert, eagerly.
" I came to tell you that I must go with him, and to ask you
for some money."
" God bless you. Don't leave him. Write to me every day.
Watch and see what he is inclined to settle to, and then let me
know. You must get some education too. You will get it with
him as well as anywhere. He must be our first care."
William said yes. He must be their first care. He had suffered a terrible wrong.
"We must get to be as brothers to one another, William," said
Cuthbert. " That will come in time. We have one great object
in common, — Charles; and that will bring us together. The
time was, when I was a fool, that I thought of being a saint, without human affections. I am wiser now. People near death see
many things which are hidden in health and youth."