and chilled by the
sudden silence of the chamber, he rose, withdrew his hands from his
face, and again he saw that countenance so mute and solemn. He cast his
gaze round the dismal room for Arthur; he called his name--no answer
came; a superstitious tremor seized upon him; his limbs shook; he sank
once more on his seat, and closed his eyes: muttering, for the first
time, perhaps, since his childhood, words of penitence and prayer. He
was roused from this bitter self-abstraction by a deep groan. It seemed
to come from the bed. Did his ears deceive him? Had the dead found a
voice? He started up in an agony of dread, and saw opposite to him the
livid countenance of Philip Morton: the Son of the Corpse had replaced
the Son of the Living Man! The dim and solitary light fell upon that
countenance. There, all the bloom and freshness natural to youth seemed
blasted! There, on those wasted features, played all the terrible power
and glare of precocious passions,--rage, woe, scorn, despair. Terrible
is it to see upon the face of a boy the storm and whirlwind that should
visit only the strong heart of man!

"She is dead!--dead! and in your presence!" shouted Philip, with his
wild eyes fixed upon the cowering uncle; "dead with--care, perhaps with
famine. And you have come to look upon your work!"

"Indeed," said Beaufort, deprecatingly, "I have but just arrived: I
did not know she had been ill, or in want, upon my honour. This is all
a--a--mistake: I--I--came in search of--of--another--"

"You did not, then, come to relieve her?" said Philip, very calmly. "You
had not learned her suffering and distress, and flown hither in the hope
that there was yet time to save her? You did not do this? Ha! ha!--why
did I think it?"

"Did any one call, gentlemen?" said a whining voice at the door; and the
nurse put in her head.

"Yes--yes--you may come in," said Beaufort, shaking with nameless and
cowardly apprehension; but Philip had flown to the door, and, gazing on
the nurse, said,

"She is a stranger! see, a stranger! The son now has assumed his post.
Begone, woman!" And he pushed her away, and drew the bolt across the
door.

And then there looked upon him, as there had looked upon his reluctant
companion, calm and holy, the face of the peaceful corpse. He burst into
tears, and fell on his knees so close to Beaufort that he touched him;
he took up the heavy hand, and covered it with burning kisses.

"Mother! mother! do not leave me