MABEL'S PROGRESS
"BY THE AUTHOR OF "AUNT MARGARET'S TROUBLE.'

                     BOOK IV.
CHAPTER VII. "TEMPORARY INSANITY."

BLANK stillness without Bramley Manor.
Blank darkness, or at best a gloomy twilight,
within. Voices hushed to a whispering utterance,
painfully distinct in the silence. Stealthy
footsteps creaking hither and thither through
the dim rooms. No sound upon the long stone
terrace, save the sighing of the wind amid the
leafless elm-trees, as if it came laden with sorrow
and secrecy, or the ghostly echo of one knew
not what voices, lurking in some angle of its
antique flagged pavement. In the moist
conservatories rich flowers drooped their heavy
heads and died untended. Upon the unrolled
gravel of the garden walks, here and there a
weed began to peer between the pebbles, and to
encroach upon the borders. The last withered
leaves lay unheeded where they fell, and the
damp black earth of the flower-beds smelt like
a new-made grave. And but a few hours had
sufficed to make this change, and cast this
desolation over the prosperous mansion. Walter
arriving at night in the large resounding
Hammerham railway station, saw Stephens's haggard
face under the bright gaslight, and leaping from
the carriage whilst the train was yet in motion,
ran to him and seized his hand.

"Am I in time? Am I in time?" It was
all he could say, and in the giddy confusion of
his head, and the noise and movement around
him, he seemed unable to comprehend the old
clerk's answer. But when they were seated
in a cab together, and rolling swiftly towards
Bramley Manor, Stephens spoke again. "I've
met every train from Holyhead since I sent
the telegram, Mr. Walter. Every one."

"I came instantly. It was impossible to be
here sooner. I did not lose a moment. Not
one moment."

"I know, I know, Mr. Walter. But it
seemed to me to be the only thing I could
do to hang about the station and wait for
you. They had some hope the sight of you
might rouse him. And I felt somehow that
I shouldn't have been astonished to see your
face in the crowd at any minute. Though I
knew, mind you, that nothing short of a miracle
could bring you here before this train."

"What is it, Stephens? It came upon me
like a thunderbolt. The last accounts I had
had from home, all well and cheerful, and then,
within ten days—Oh, father, father!"

The lad covered his face, and burst into a
fit of weeping that shook him from head to foot.

"Hush, hush!" cried Stephens, clutching
him by the arm. "For God's sake, don't give
way, Mr. Watty. You don't know—I was to
tell you you must be a man for the sake of your
mother and Miss Charlewood. Heaven help the
poor souls, they're in sore, sore affliction."

"Is my father's case hopeless? Are they
sure? Is there no hope?—none?"

"He was alive when I left the Manor at
eight o'clock this morning. But—I—I—Oh,
Lord, Mr. Wat, I don't know how to tell you,
my poor lad. You must think of the others,
you know, and look at Mr. Clement, how he
bears up with all he has to go through! See
now, Walter," added Stephens, as the cab
swept in at the open lodge gate, unmindful of
forms and ceremonies in the solemnity of the
moment, and speaking simply as an old man to
a younger one—"see, now, you must make up
your mind to bear a heavy trial. There's death
in this house we're going to. Walter your
father has—has hastened his own end. He took
laudanum last night, and never spoke after they
found him insensible."

The vehicle stopped before the portico that
Walter Charlewood had last quitted on his
sister's wedding-day; joyous, prosperous, rich
in this world's goods, and the spoiled idol of
indulgent parents. There, in the dimly lighted
hall, stood Clement. Was it Clement, this white-
faced, haggard man, with sunken eyes, and
deeply cut lines of suffering round his mouth?
He stood quite still, and looked at Walter
impassibly. The latter almost staggered as he
alighted from the cab, and was fain to lean on
the old man's shoulder who accompanied him.

"It is all over," said Clement.

"Oh, Clem, oh, Clem!" The weak trembling
lad fell on his brother's breast, who opened his
arms to receive him, as he might have done
when Walter was a petted wayward child, and
would come in their school-days to his elder
brother for comfort or protection. The action
loosed the pent-up fountain of his own tears,
and for a while the two young men sobbed in