or's, who, like other simple persons, was fond of regarding others
as harmless repetitions of himself. 'And his sojourn will be,' he says,
'but a matter of weeks; and the doctors mind wandered back again to the
dead, and forward to the remoter consequences of his guilt, so he heaved
a heavy, honest sigh, and lifted up his head and slackened his pace for
a little prayer, and with that there came the rumble of wheels to the
church door.

CHAPTER II.

THE NAMELESS COFFIN.

Three vehicles with flambleaux, and the clang and snorting of horses
came close to the church porch, and there appeared suddenly, standing
within the disc of candle-light at the church door, before one would
have thought there was time, a tall, very pale, and peculiar looking
young man, with very large, melancholy eyes, and a certain cast of evil
pride in his handsome face.

John Tracy lighted the wax candles which he had brought, and Bob Martin
stuck them in the sockets at either side of the cushion, on the ledge of
the pew, beside the aisle, where the prayer-book lay open at 'the burial
of the dead,' and the rest of the party drew about the door, while the
doctor was shaking hands very ceremoniously with that tall young man,
who had now stepped into the circle of light, with a short, black mantle
on, and his black curls uncovered, and a certain air of high breeding in
his movements. 'He reminded me painfully of him who is gone, whom we
name not,' said the doctor to pretty Lilias, when he got home; he has
his pale, delicately-formed features, with a shadow of his evil
passions too, and his mother's large, sad eyes.'

And an elderly clergyman, in surplice, band, and white wig, with a hard,
yellow, furrowed face, hovered in, like a white bird of night, from the
darkness behind, and was introduced to Dr. Walsingham, and whispered for
a while to Mr. Irons, and then to Bob Martin, who had two short forms
placed transversely in the aisle to receive what was coming, and a
shovel full of earth--all ready. So, while the angular clergyman ruffled
into the front of the pew, with Irons on one side, a little in the rear,
both books open; the plump little undertaker, diffusing a steam from his
moist garments, making a prismatic halo round the candles and lanterns,
as he moved successively by them, whispered a word or two to the young
gentleman [Mr. Mervyn, the doctor called him], and Mr. Mervyn
disappeared. Dr. Walsingham and John Tracy got into contiguo