my life from a serious danger, acquitted my
honour of a horrible suspicion. "I thank you,"
I said to Strahan, "I will come; not, indeed,
for a week, but, at all events, for a day or two."

"That's right; I will call for you in the
carriage at six o'clock. You will have done your
day's work by then?"

"Yes, I will so arrange."

On our way to Derval Court that evening,
Strahan talked much about Margrave, of whom,
nevertheless, he seemed to be growing weary.

"His high spirits are too much for one," said
he; "and then so restless—so incapable of
sustained quiet conversation. And, clever though
he is, he can't help me in the least about the new
house I shall build. He has no notion of
construction. I don't think he could build a barn."

"I thought you did not like to demolish the
old house, and would content yourself with
pulling down the more ancient part of it?"

"True. At first it seemed a pity to destroy
so handsome a mansion; but you see, since poor
Sir Philip's manuscript, on which he set such
store, has been too mutilated, I fear, to allow me
to effect his wish with regard to it, I think I
ought, at least, scrupulously to obey his other
whims. And, besides—I don't know—there are
odd noises about the old house. I don't believe
in haunted houses, still there is something dreary
in strange sounds at the dead of night, even
if made by rats, or winds through decaying
rafters. You, I remember at college, had a taste
for architecture, and can draw plans. I wish to
follow out Sir Philip's design, but on a smaller
scale, and with more attention to comfort."

Thus he continued to run on, satisfied to find
me a silent and attentive listener. We arrived
at the mansion an hour before sunset, the
westering light shining full against the many
windows cased in mouldering pilasters, and
making the general dilapidation of the whole
place yet more mournfully evident.

It was but a few minutes to the dinner-hour.
I went up at once to the room appropriated to
me—not the one I had before occupied. Strahan
had already got together a new establishment. I
was glad to find in the servant who attended me
an old acquaintance. He had been in my own
employ when I first settled at L——, and left me
to get married. He and his wife were now both
in Strahan's service. He spoke warmly of his
new master and his contentment with his situation,
while he unpacked my carpet-bag and
assisted me to change my dress. But the chief
object of his talk and his praise was
Margrave.

"Such a bright young gentleman, like the
first fine day in May!"

When I entered the drawing-room, Margrave
and Strahan were both there. The former was
blithe and genial, as usual, in his welcome. At
dinner, and during the whole evening till we
retired severally to our own rooms, he was the
principal talker; recounting incidents of travel,
always very loosely strung together, jesting, good
humouredly enough, at Strahan's sudden hobby
for building, then putting questions to me about
mutual acquaintances, but never waiting for an
answer, and every now and then, as if at random,
startling us with some brilliant aphorism or some
suggestion drawn from abstract science or
unfamiliar erudition. The whole effect was sparkling,
but I could well understand, that if long
continued, it would become oppressive. The soul
has need of pauses of repose—intervals of escape
not only from the flesh, but even from the mind.
A man of the loftiest intellect will experience
times when mere intellect not only fatigues him,
but amidst its most original conceptions, amidst
its proudest triumphs, has a something trite and
common-place compared with one of those vague
intimations of a spiritual destiny which are not
within the ordinary domain of reason; and, gazing
abstractedly into space, will leave suspended
some problem of severest thought, or uncompleted
some golden palace of imperial poetry, to
indulge in hazy reveries that do not differ from
those of an innocent quiet child! The soul has
a long road to travel—from time through
eternity. It demands its halting hours of
contemplation. Contemplation is serene. But
with such wants of an immortal immaterial
spirit, Margrave had no fellowship, no sympathy;
and for myself, I need scarcely add that the
lines I have just traced I should not have written
at the date at which my narrative has now
arrived.

CHAPTER XLIX.

I HAD no case that necessitated my return to
L——the following day. The earlier hours of
the forenoon I devoted to Strahan and his building
plans. Margrave flitted in and out of the
room fitfully as an April sunbeam, sometimes
flinging himself on a sofa and reading for a few
minutes one of the volumes of the ancient
mystics, in which Sir Philip's library was so
rich. I remember it was a volume of Proclus.
He read that crabbed and difficult Greek with
a fluency that surprised me. "I picked up
the ancient Greek," said he, "years ago, in learning
the modern." But the book soon tired him;
then he would come and disturb us, archly
enjoying Strahan's peevishness at interruption;
then he would throw open the window and
leap down, chanting one of his wild savage airs;
and in another moment he was half hid under the
drooping boughs of a broad lime-tree, amidst the
antlers of deer that gathered fondly round him.
In the afternoon my host was called away to
attend some visitors of importance, and I found
myself on the sward before the house, right in
view of the mausoleum, and alone with
Margrave.

I turned my eyes from that dumb House of
Death wherein rested the corpse of the last lord
of the soil, so strangely murdered, with a strong
desire to speak out to Margrave the doubts
respecting himself that tortured me. But, setting
aside the promise to the contrary, which I had
given, or dreamed I had given, to the Luminous