from some labouring weight, stirred up the
fire till every lurking shadow was chased out
of the room, and sat down in an easy chair
by the hearth—its master.

Its master. He had coveted the place
long; he had drawn plans of what he should
do when he got it; how important, how
respectable, how powerful he should be. These
plans recurred to him now very vividly, and
there was no more interest or beauty in
them than in the handful of white ashes
scattered under the grate. He shifted his
seat restlessly from side to side, and his face,
usually so calm and self-possessed, was of a
cold, grey pallor—an awful look he had, as
the servant remarked to his fellows in the
kitchen, after he had been rung up-stairs
twice to replenish the blazing fire.

Contrary to his usual custom, Carl drank
glass after glass of wine, then rose and paced
the room heavily, as if the companionable
sound of his own footsteps was better than
the vault-like silence.

"No wonder," said the housekeeper, "no
wonder he felt lonely and lost—his father
had doted on him; nay, she did believe that,
close-handed as old master was known to be,
he would have coined his heart for young
master."

Suddenly he paused in the centre of the
room, and his eyes settled on the great mirror
which towered between the mantel and the
ceiling. He seemed to see in its depths the
heavily-draped crimson bed in which his
father died, and between it and the light
stood a tall figure like himself pouring a
liquid from a phial into a glass of water; a
dim lurid glare was on the face of the glass
in which the objects wavered shadowy, and
then gradually faded, until it reflected only
the sweep of the window curtain behind him
and his own stony face.

"It is only a delusion," he said aloud,
but his limbs shook as if palsy-stricken,
and his heart beat like a hammer. He
rang the bell, and when the servant appeared
he held him in talk some time, asking trivial
questions, and giving as trivial orders, until
the man wondered what had come over him,
and suggested that, perhaps, he would like to
see his brother, Mr. Robin.

"No; not him. See that this great looking-
glass is taken down to-morrow, Stevens; I am
going to have a picture in its place," his
master said; "that is all—you can go and
tell Blundell I want to speak to him."

Blundell, the white-haired butler, came,
and stood some five minutes with the door
open before Carl spoke, and when he did at
last raise his head, he appeared to seek in his
mind for what he had intended to say, and,
not remembering it, he dismissed the old
servant, recalled him, asked for a chamber
candlestick, and went np-stairs to his
bedroom. Blundell remarked that he never in
his life did see a man so shook as Mr. Carl
by his father's death.

In the office, during the daytime, when he
was surrounded by business, Carl Branston
recovered himself; but night after night
this fear of solitude returned upon him.
Marston observed that while his temper grew
more irritable his hardness of character
relaxed, and often he manifested a total
indifference to opportunities of gain which
would once have enlisted all his bad and
selfish energies. Carl had made the discovery
that a man may be rich, respectable,
important, and powerful, while he is utterly and
hopelessly wretched. He would have changed
places with the bare-footed tramp in the
streets, with his miserable debtors, with
anybody. In his harassed and dejected state he was
often visited by the doctor who had attended
his father, and who now recommended him
either to travel awhile or to have company
in his own house. Carl did not like to stir
from home, and could think of nobody for a
companion but Mistress Margery Pilkington;
so he sent for her, and she came. He had
society enough now. O! it was a blissful
household where Margery Pilkington ruled.

Ere long, Carl grew more afraid of his
cheerful companion than he had ever been
either of himself or his solitude. The
glare of her eyes pursued him, watched him
as steadfastly as if she were his fate patiently
biding its hour; she dictated to him on all
occasions, great and small, and took complete
mastery of him; if he resisted, she menaced
him, and there was that in her hard voice
and glittering cold eye which said he had
better not quarrel with her! And Carl did
not quarrel with her; but, after enduring a
two years' tyranny—to which old monkish
discipline must have been a trifle—Mrs.
Margery Pilkington was one morning found
dead in her bed, and he was free again.

It was after this event that the house was
sold and pulled down: an institution for
charitable purposes being built on its site.
Carl Branston gave the money, and laid the
foundation stone. Afterwards, he went abroad.
It is but imperfectly known what he did
there. Marston conducted the business at
home on his own responsibility. From time
to time rumours reached him that Carl had
become a papist, and member of a severe
community of monks; then, that he was living
under some new medical regimen in an
establishment near Paris; then, that he was gone
on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem—that he was
an attendant at a public hospital—a volunteer
with the French army in Algiers—fifty things,
of which the brief business letters "do this,
do that"—gave no hint whatever. So
Marston believed none of them. His master
loved travel, it appeared; let him have it,
then; he would find all right whenever it
pleased him to come home again.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

A MERRY heart and a, good temper will
carry their owner blithely through the trials