of its seeming inhabitants, and kept up for
a hundred years a dreadful existence by such adventures as it had
consummated at the hall, where, in the course of ordinary human life, it
had once lived?

All these were questions which irresistibly pressed themselves upon the
consideration of Henry and his brother. They were awful questions.

And yet, take any sober, sane, thinking, educated man, and show him all
that they had seen, subject him to all to which they had been subjected,
and say if human reason, and all the arguments that the subtlest brain
could back it with, would be able to hold out against such a vast
accumulation of horrible evidences, and say--"I don't believe it."

Mr. Chillingworth's was the only plan. He would not argue the question.
He said at once,--

"I will not believe this thing--upon this point I will yield to no
evidence whatever."

That was the only way of disposing of such a question; but there are not
many who could so dispose of it, and not one so much interested in it as
were the brothers Bannerworth, who could at all hope to get into such a
state of mind.

The boards were laid carefully down again, and the screws replaced.
Henry found himself unequal to the task, so it was done by Marchdale,
who took pains to replace everything in the same state in which they had
found it, even to the laying even the matting at the bottom of the pew.

Then they extinguished the light, and, with heavy hearts, they all
walked towards the window, to leave the sacred edifice by the same means
they had entered it.

"Shall we replace the pane of glass?" said Marchdale.

"Oh, it matters not--it matters not," said Henry, listlessly; "nothing
matters now. I care not what becomes of me--I am getting weary of a life
which now must be one of misery and dread."

"You must not allow yourself to fall into such a state of mind as this,"
said the doctor, "or you will become a patient of mine very quickly."

"I cannot help it."

"Well, but be a man. If there are serious evils affecting you, fight out
against them the best way you can."

"I cannot."

"Come, now, listen to me. We need not, I think, trouble ourselves about
the pane of glass, so come along."

He took the arm of Henry and walked on with him a little in advance of
the others.

"Henry," he said, "the best way, you may depend, of meeting evils, be
they great or small, is to get up an obstinate feeling of defiance
against them. Now, when anythi