table was scarcely commenced: the words ran thus,--

"LUCRETIA,--You will return no more to my house. You are free as if I
were dead; but I shall be just. Would that I had been so to your mother,
to your sister! But I am old now, as you say, and--"

To one who could have seen into that poor proud heart at the moment
the hand paused forever, what remained unwritten would have been clear.
There was, first, the sharp struggle to conquer loathing repugnance, and
address at all the false and degraded one; then came the sharp sting of
ingratitude; then the idea of the life grudged and the grave desired;
then the stout victory over scorn, the resolution to be just; then the
reproach of the conscience that for so far less an offence the sister
had been thrown aside, the comfort, perhaps, found in her gentle and
neglected child obstinately repelled; then the conviction of all earthly
vanity and nothingness,--the look on into life, with the chilling
sentiment that affection was gone, that he could never trust again,
that he was too old to open his arms to new ties; and then, before felt
singly, all these thoughts united, and snapped the cord.

In announcing his mournful intelligence, with more feeling than might
have been expected from a lawyer (but even his lawyer loved Sir Miles),
Mr. Parchmount observed that "as the deceased lay at a hotel, and as
Miss Clavering's presence would not be needed in the performance of
the last rites, she would probably forbear the journey to town.
Nevertheless, as it was Sir Miles's wish that the will should be opened
as soon as possible after his death, and it would doubtless contain
instructions as to his funeral, it would be well that Miss Clavering and
her sister should immediately depute some one to attend the reading
of the testament on their behalf. Perhaps Mr. Fielden would kindly
undertake that melancholy office."

To do justice to Lucretia, it must be said that her first emotions,
on the receipt of this letter, were those of a poignant and remorseful
grief, for which she was unprepared. But how different it is to count
on what shall follow death, and to know that death has come! Susan's
sobbing sympathy availed not, nor Mr. Fielden's pious and tearful
exhortations; her own sinful thoughts and hopes came back to her,
haunting and stern as furies. She insisted at first upon going to
London, gazing once more on the clay,--nay, the carriage was at the
door, for all yielded to her vehemenc