is eyes.

"'Tis a confession," he said.

"'Tis as you please," said Mr. Atterbury.

There was a fire in the room, where the cloths were drying for the baths,
and there lay a heap in a corner, saturated with the blood of my dear
lord's body. Esmond went to the fire, and threw the paper into it. 'Twas a
great chimney with glazed Dutch tiles. How we remember such trifles in
such awful moments!--the scrap of the book that we have read in a great
grief--the taste of that last dish that we have eaten before a duel or some
such supreme meeting or parting. On the Dutch tiles at the bagnio was a
rude picture representing Jacob in hairy gloves, cheating Isaac of Esau's
birthright. The burning paper lighted it up.

"'Tis only a confession, Mr. Atterbury," said the young man. He leaned his
head against the mantelpiece: a burst of tears came to his eyes. They were
the first he had shed as he sat by his lord, scared by this calamity and
more yet by what the poor dying gentleman had told him, and shocked to
think that he should be the agent of bringing this double misfortune on
those he loved best.

"Let us go to him," said Mr. Esmond. And accordingly they went into the
next chamber, where, by this time, the dawn had broke, which showed my
lord's poor pale face and wild appealing eyes, that wore that awful fatal
look of coming dissolution. The surgeon was with him. He went into the
chamber as Atterbury came out thence. My lord viscount turned round his
sick eyes towards Esmond. It choked the other to hear that rattle in his
throat.

"My lord viscount," says Mr. Atterbury, "Mr. Esmond wants no witnesses,
and hath burned the paper."

"My dearest master!" Esmond said, kneeling down, and taking his hand and
kissing it.

My lord viscount sprang up in his bed, and flung his arms round Esmond.
"God bl--bless...," was all he said. The blood rushed from his mouth,
deluging the young man. My dearest lord was no more. He was gone with a
blessing on his lips, and love and repentance and kindness in his manly
heart.

"_Benedicti benedicentes_," says Mr. Atterbury, and the young man kneeling
at the bedside, groaned out an Amen.

"Who shall take the news to her?" was Mr. Esmond's next thought. And on
this he besought Mr. Atterbury to bear the tidings to Castlewood. He could
not face his mistress himself with those dreadful news. Mr. Atterbury
complying kindly, Esmond writ a hasty note on his table-book to my lord's
man, bidding him get