a second identity. The misery of his
isolated position never for a moment left him; and yet there were
repeated to him over and over again those bungling, ill-arranged,
impossible pictures of trivial transactions about the place, which
the slumber of a few seconds sufficed to create in his brain. "Mr.
Ralph, you must go to bed;--you must indeed, sir," said the old
butler, standing over him with a candle during one of these fitful
dreamings.

"Yes, Grey;--yes, I will; directly. Put it down. Thank you. Don't
mind sitting up," said Ralph, rousing himself in his chair.

"It's past twelve," Mr. Ralph.

"You can go to bed, you know, Grey."

"No, sir;--no. I'll see you to bed first. It'll be better so. Why,
Mr. Ralph, the fire's all out, and you're sitting here perished. You
wasn't in bed last night, and you ought to be there now. Come, Mr.
Ralph."

Then Ralph rose from his chair and took the candlestick. It was true
enough that he had better be in bed. As he shook himself, he felt
that he had never been so cold in his life. And then as he moved
there came upon him that terrible feeling that everything was amiss
with him, that there was no consolation on any side. "That'll do,
Grey; good night," he said, as the old man prepared to follow him
up-stairs. But Grey was not to be shaken off. "I'll just see you to
your room, Mr. Ralph." He wanted to accompany his young master past
the door of that chamber in which was lying all that remained of the
old master. But Ralph would open the door. "Not to-night, Mr. Ralph,"
said Grey. But Ralph persisted, and stood again by the bedside. "He
would have given me his flesh and blood;--his very life," said Ralph
to the butler. "I think no father ever so loved a son. And yet, what
has it come to?" Then he stooped down, and put his lips to the cold
clay-blue forehead.

"It ain't come to much surely," said old Grey to himself as he crept
away to his own room; "and I don't suppose it do come to much mostly
when folks go wrong."

Ralph was out again before breakfast, wandering up and down the banks
of the stream where the wood hid him, and then he made up his mind
that he would at once write again to Sir Thomas Underwood. He must
immediately make it understood that that suggestion which he had
made in his ill-assumed pride of position must be abandoned. He
had nothing now to offer to that queenly princess worthy of the
acceptance of any woman. He was a base-born son, about to be turned
o