ew with his years, and vague
and unmeaning as it appeared, it had the force of an instinct. His own
memory failed him as to all the circumstances of an early insult, but
enough remained to make him know that he had been ignominiously treated
and expelled from the house. In the great career of his life, with
absorbing cares and high interests around him, he had little time for
such memories, but in moments of solitude or of depression the thought
would come up, and a sense of vindictive pleasure fill him, as he
remembered, in the stern words of his father, where was _he_, and where
were _they?_ In the protection he had that very day assumed to throw
over Kellett in the Court, there was the sentiment of an insolent
triumph; and here was again the daughter of the once proud man
supplicating an interview with him.

These were his thoughts as he entered the room where Sybella Kellett was
standing near the fire. She had taken off her bonnet, and as her long
hair fell down, and her dripping clothes clung to her, the picture of
poverty and destitution her appearance conveyed revolted against the
sentiment which had so lately filled him, and it was in a voice of
gentle meaning he asked her to be seated.

"Can you tell me of my father, sir?" said she, eagerly, and not heeding
his words; "he left home early this morning, and has never returned."

"I can tell you everything, Miss Kellett," said he, in a kind voice. "It
will reassure you at once when I say he is well. Before this he is at
home again."

The young girl clasped her hands closely, and her pale lips murmured
some faint words.

"In a moment of excitement this morning he said something to offend the
Court. It was an emergency to try a calmer temper, perhaps, than his;
indeed, he ought not to have been there; at all events, he was betrayed
into expressions which could not be passed over in mere silence, and he
was committed--"

"To prison?" said she, faintly.

"Yes, he was taken into custody, but only for a few hours. I obtained
his release soon after the Court rose. The difficulty was to make him
accept of his liberation. Far from having calmed down, his passion had
only increased, and it was only after much entreaty that he consented to
leave the jail and come here with me. In fact, it was under the pretence
of drawing up a formal protest against his arrest that he did come, and
he has been employed in this manner till about an hour ago, when one of
my clerks too