One son was absent, for he had fled from the place years before to become a prodigal in some far country, afraid to return to his home, cast out and disowned by his father, who refused to allow his name to be mentioned in his presence, and had torn up, unopened, the few letters the lad had written. There had been rumors that this youngest son had repented and had sought out the people whom he had wronged and was seeking to make such restitution as lay in his power. But nobody had ever bothered to try to discover the facts of the case; and as all letters he had written had been destroyed, for his father absolutely refused to forgive him, no one knew of his address, or in what distant land he lived, so that naturally no news of his father’s illness had been sent him.

So the old lord lay on his bed, surrounded day and night by nurses and attended by the most skillful doctors money could procure, anticipating death with an agony of horror impossible to describe. His fears were so great that the doctors had once suggested the advisability of calling in the help of a minister, who might be able to give him spiritual comfort, or perhaps a priest to allow the old man to ease his conscience by confessing his sins. But Lord Fearing had been an infidel for so many years that the very first suggestion of such a thing threw him into so great a rage that nobody ventured to make the suggestion again.

The tormenting days, and the still more terrible nights, dragged slowly by and the old man grew weaker. He had steadily refused to see any visitors. He knew only too well that his own cronies would despise his agonizing fears and would not know what to say to him, and the sight of their health and strength and preoccupation with the things of this world, which he must so soon leave, would madden him and aggravate his own horrible fate. Ah, how they would gibe and joke about his fears among themselves afterwards!

The Shepherd’s friends had made many earnest attempts to see him. Mrs. Valiant, who, before her marriage, had been a nursemaid at the castle, was one of them. So was Mercy, who would have been only too happy to share in the nursing. So was the young Shepherd, Fearless Trust, who was foster brother to Lord Fearing’s youngest son. But all in vain. The old man in his fear, and in his fear of others seeing his fear, was adamant.