isquieted.

The book that lay in his lap was a volume of Shakespeare, open at the
"Merchant of Venice." Something he had come across in that play had set
him thinking. The book had fallen on his knees, and he sat pondering
till he had fallen asleep. Yet even in his slumber the uneasy
expression stayed upon his face, and now and then he moved uneasily in
his chair.

What could there be to vex him? Not poverty at all events, for not a
year ago a relation, whom he had seldom seen, and of late years
entirely lost sight of, had left him 5000L. and a like sum to his
daughter Mary. And his sister, Miss Thornton, a quiet good old maid,
who had been a governess all her life, had come to live with him, so
that he was now comfortably off, with the only two relations he cared
about in the world staying with him to make his old age comfortable.
Yet notwithstanding all this, John was unhappy.

His daughter Mary sat sewing in the window, ostensibly for the purpose
of using the last of the daylight. But the piece of white muslin in her
hand claimed but a small part of her attention. Sometimes she gave a
stitch or two; but then followed a long gaze out of the window, across
the damp gravel and plushy lawn, towards the white gate under the
leafless larches. Again with an impatient sigh she would address
herself to her sewing, but once more her attention would wander to the
darkening garden; so at length she rose, and leaning against the
window, began to watch the white gate once more.

But now she starts, and her face brightens up, as the gate swings on
its hinges, and a tall man comes with rapid eager step up the walk.
John moves uneasily in his sleep, but unnoticed by her, for she stands
back in the shadow of the curtain, and eagerly watches the new comer in
his approach. Her father sits up in his chair, and after looking sadly
at her for a moment, then sinks back with a sigh, as though he would
wish to go to sleep again and wake no more.

The maid, bringing in candles, met the new comer at the door, and,
carrying in the lights before him, announced--

"Mr. George Hawker."

I remember his face indistinctly as it was then. I remember it far
better as it was twenty years after. Yet I must try to recall it for
you as well as I can, for we shall have much to do with this man before
the end. As the light from the candles fell upon his figure while he
stood in the doorway, any man or woman who saw it would have exclaimed
immediately