's breast heaved as he looked upon his brother's brightening
face. That secret of his own heart must lie forever buried there. Yes,
he had already resolved upon that. He should never darken the future
that lay pictured in those radiant eyes. But this was a moment of
agony nevertheless. Ralph was following the funeral of the mightiest
passion of his soul. He got up and opened the door.

"Good night, and God bless you!" he said huskily.

"One moment, Ralph. Did you see two men, strangers, on the road
to-night? Ah, I remember, you came in at the back."

"Two friends of Joe Garth's," said Ralph, closing the door behind him.

When he reached his own room he sat for some minutes on the bed. What
were the feelings that preyed upon him? He hardly knew. His heart was
desolate. His life seemed to be losing its hope, or his hope its
object. And not yet had he reached the worst. Some dread forewarning
of a sterner fate seemed to hang above him.

Rising, Ralph threw off his shoes, and drew on a pair of stouter ones.
Then he laced up a pair of leathern leggings, and, taking down a heavy
cloak from behind the door, he put it across his arm. He had no light
but the light of the moon.

Stepping quietly along the creaky old corridor to the room where his
father lay, Ralph opened the door and entered. A clod of red turf
smouldered on the hearth, and the warm glow from it mingled with the
cold blue of the moonlight. How full of the odor of a dead age the
room now seemed to be! The roof was opened through the rude timbers to
the whitened thatch. Sheepskins were scattered about the black oaken
floor. Ralph walked to the chimney-breast, and stood on one of the
skins as he leaned on the rannel-tree shelf. How still and cheerless
it all was!

The room stretched from the front to the back of the house, and had a
window at each end. The moon that shone through the window at the
front cast its light across the foot of the bed. Ralph had come to bid
his last good-night to him who lay thereon. It was in this room that
he himself had been born. He might never enter it again.

How the strong man was laid low! All his pride of strength had shrunk
to this! "The lofty looks of men shall be humbled, and the haughtiness
of men shall be bowed down." What indeed was man, whose breath was in
his nostrils!

The light was creeping up the bed. Silent was he who lay there as the
secret which he had never discharged even to his deaf pillow. Had that
sec