per? Let me offer you the writing materials
which I use in traveling."

I placed them before him. He took up the pen; he arranged the paper; he
was eager to begin.

After writing a few words, he stopped--reflected--tried again--stopped
again--tore up the little that he had done--and began a new letter,
ending in the same miserable result. It was impossible to witness
his helplessness, to see how pitiably patient he was over his own
incapacity, and to let the melancholy spectacle go on. I proposed to
write the letter; authenticating it, of course, by his signature. When
he allowed me to take the pen, he turned away his face, ashamed to let
me see what he suffered. Was this the same man, whose great nature had
so nobly asserted itself in the condemned cell? Poor mortality!

The letter was easily written.

I had only to inform Mr. Dunboyne of his son's conduct; repeating, in
the plainest language that I could use, what Miss Jillgall had related
to me. Arrived at the conclusion, I contrived to make Mr. Gracedieu
express himself in these strong terms: "I protest against the marriage
in justice to you, sir, as well as to myself. We can neither of us
content to be accomplices in an act of domestic treason of the basest
kind."

In silence, the Minister read the letter, and attached his signature to
it. In silence, he rose and took my arm. I asked if he wished to go to
his room. He only replied by a sign. I offered to sit with him, and try
to cheer him. Gratefully, he pressed my hand: gently, he put me back
from the door. Crushed by the miserable discovery of the decay of his
own faculties! What could I do? what could I say? Nothing!

Miss Jillgall was in the drawing-room. With the necessary explanations,
I showed her the letter. She read it with breathless interest. "It
terrifies one to think how much depends on old Mr. Dunboyne," she said.
"You know him. What sort of man is he?"

I could only assure her (after what I remembered of his letter to me)
that he was a man whom we could depend upon.

Miss Jillgall possessed treasures of information to which I could lay
no claim. Mr. Dunboyne, she told me, was a scholar, and a writer, and a
rich man. His views on marriage were liberal in the extreme. Let his
son find good principles, good temper, and good looks, in a wife, and he
would promise to find the money.

"I get these particulars," said Miss Jillgall, "from dear Euneece. They
are surely encouraging? That Helena ma