y, Bale, _Bale_, it's
impossible! You _can't_ believe it. When did I ever wrong you? You know
me since I was not higher than the table, and--and----"

He burst into tears.

"Stop your snivelling, sir, and give up the note. You know devilish well
I can't spare it; and I won't spare you if you put me to it. I've said
my say."

Sir Bale signed towards the door; and like a somnambulist, with dilated
gaze and pale as death, Philip Feltram, at his wit's end, went out of
the room. It was not till he had again reached the housekeeper's door
that he recollected in what direction he was going. His shut hand was
pressed with all his force to his heart, and the first breath he was
conscious of was a deep wild sob or two that quivered from his heart as
he looked from the lobby-window upon a landscape which he did not see.

All he had ever suffered before was mild in comparison with this dire
paroxysm. Now, for the first time, was he made acquainted with his real
capacity for pain, and how near he might be to madness and yet retain
intellect enough to weigh every scruple, and calculate every chance and
consequence, in his torture.

Sir Bale, in the meantime, had walked out a little more excited than he
would have allowed. He was still convinced that Feltram had stolen the
note, but not quite so certain as he had been. There were things in his
manner that confirmed, and others that perplexed, Sir Bale.

The Baronet stood upon the margin of the lake, almost under the evening
shadow of the house, looking towards Snakes Island. There were two
things about Mardykes he specially disliked.

One was Philip Feltram, who, right or wrong, he fancied knew more than
was pleasant of his past life.

The other was the lake. It was a beautiful piece of water, his eye,
educated at least in the excellences of landscape-painting,
acknowledged. But although he could pull a good oar, and liked other
lakes, to this particular sheet of water there lurked within him an
insurmountable antipathy. It was engendered by a variety of
associations.

There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout
and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.
His boding was made-up of omens, dreams, and such stuff as he most
affected to despise, and there fluttered at his heart a presentiment and
disgust.

His foot was on the gunwale of the boat, that was chained to its ring at
the margin; but he would not have crossed