ored Catherine.

"Yes--she, whom your brother so loved--the mother of his children--died
in this squalid room, and far from her sons, in poverty, in sorrow! died
of a broken heart! Was that well, father? Have you in this nothing to
repent?"

Conscience-stricken and appalled, the worldly man sank down on a seat
beside the bed, and covered his face with his hands.

"Ay," continued Arthur, almost bitterly--"ay, we, his nearest of
kin--we, who have inherited his lands and gold--we have been thus
heedless of the great legacy your brother bequeathed to us:--the
things dearest to him--the woman he loved--the children his death cast,
nameless and branded, on the world. Ay, weep, father: and while you
weep, think of the future, of reparation. I have sworn to that clay
to befriend her sons; join you, who have all the power to fulfil the
promise--join in that vow: and may Heaven not visit on us both the woes
of this bed of death!"

"I did not know--I--I--" faltered Mr. Beaufort.

"But we should have known," interrupted Arthur, mournfully. "Ah, my dear
father! do not harden your heart by false excuses. The dead still speaks
to you, and commends to your care her children. My task here is done: O
sir! yours is to come. I leave you alone with the dead."

So saying, the young man, whom the tragedy of the scene had worked into
a passion and a dignity above his usual character, unwilling to trust
himself farther to his emotions, turned abruptly from the room, fled
rapidly down the stairs and left the house. As the carriage and liveries
of his father met his eye, he groaned; for their evidences of comfort
and wealth seemed a mockery to the deceased: he averted his face and
walked on. Nor did he heed or even perceive a form that at that instant
rushed by him--pale, haggard, breathless--towards the house which he had
quitted, and the door of which he left open, as he had found it--open,
as the physician had left it when hurrying, ten minutes before the
arrival of Mr. Beaufort, from the spot where his skill was impotent.
Wrapped in gloomy thought, alone, and on foot-at that dreary hour, and
in that remote suburb--the heir of the Beauforts sought his splendid
home. Anxious, fearful, hoping, the outcast orphan flew on to the
death-room of his mother.

Mr. Beaufort, who had but imperfectly heard Arthur's parting accents,
lost and bewildered by the strangeness of his situation, did not at
first perceive that he was left alone. Surprised,