The message was sent, and when the Colonel awoke from an uneasy slumber he saw his son at the foot of the bed, gazing piteously at him.

“My dear boy,” said he, faintly, and held out a wasted hand.  Walter was pricked to the heart at this greeting:  not a word of remonstrance at his absence.

“I fear you missed me, father,” said he, sadly.

“That I have,” said the old man; “but I dare say you didn’t forget me, though you weren’t by my side.”

The high-minded old soldier said no more, and put no questions, but confided in his son’s affection, and awaited the result of it.  From that hour Walter Clifford nursed his father day and night.  Dr. Garner arrived next day.  He examined the patient, and put a great many questions as to the history and progress of the disorder up to that date, and inquired in particular what was the length of time the fits generally endured.  Here he found them all rather hazy.  “Ah,” said he, “patients are seldom able to assist their medical adviser with precise information on this point, yet it’s very important.  Well, can you tell me how long this attack has lasted?”

They told him that within a day or two.

“Then now,” said he, “the most important question of all:  What day did the pain leave his extremities?”

The patient and John Baker had to compare notes to answer this question, and they made it out to be about twenty days.

“Then he ought to be as dead as a herring,” whispered the doctor.

After this he began to walk the room and meditate, with his hands behind him.

“Open those top windows,” said he.  “Now draw the screen, and give his lungs a chance; no draughts must blow upon him, you know.”  Then he drew Walter aside.  “Do you want to know the truth?  Well, then, his life hangs on a thread.  The gout is creeping upward, and will inevitably kill him if we can’t get it down.  Nothing but heroic remedies will do that, and it’s three to five against them.  What do you say?”

“I dare not—­I dare not.  Pray put the question to him.”

“I will,” said the doctor; and accordingly he did put it to him with a good deal of feeling and gentleness, and the answer rather surprised him.

Weak as he was, Colonel Clifford’s dull eye flashed, and he half raised himself on his elbow.  “What a question to put to a soldier!” said he.  “Why, let us fight, to be sure.  I thought it was twenty to one—­five to three?  I have often won the rubber with five to three against me.”

“Ah!” said Dr. Garner, “these are the patients that give the doctor a chance.”  Then he turned to Baker.  “Have you any good champagne in the house—­not sweet, and not too dry, and full of fire?”

“Irroy’s Carte d’Or,” suggested the patient, entering into the business with a certain feeble alacrity that showed his gout had not always been unconnected with imprudence in diet.

Baker was sent for the champagne.  It was brought and opened, and the patient drank some of it fizzing.  When he had drank what he could, his eyes twinkled, and he said,