arms
drooping--her face wistfully turned to his--and a half smile upon the
lips, that made still more touching the tears not yet dried upon her
cheeks. While thin, frail, shadowy, with white hair and furrowed cheeks,
the old man fixed his sightless orbs on space; and his face, usually
only animated from the lethargy of advancing dotage by a certain
querulous cynicism, now grew suddenly earnest, and even thoughtful, as
Fanny spoke of Death!

CHAPTER V.

"Ulyss. Time hath a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
* * Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright."--Troilus and Cressida.

I have, not sought--as would have been easy, by a little ingenuity
in the earlier portion of this narrative--whatever source of vulgar
interest might be derived from the mystery of names and persons. As
in Charles Spencer the reader is allowed at a glance to detect Sidney
Morton, so in Philip de Vaudemont (the stranger who rescued Fanny) the
reader at once recognises the hero of my tale; but since neither of
these young men has a better right to the name resigned than to the name
adopted, it will be simpler and more convenient to designate them by
those appellations by which they are now known to the world. In truth,
Philip de Vaudemont was scarcely the same being as Philip Morton. In the
short visit he had paid to the elder Gawtrey, when he consigned Fanny to
his charge, he had given no name; and the one he now took (when, towards
the evening of the next day he returned to Simon's house) the old man
heard for the first time. Once more sunk into his usual apathy,
Simon did not express any surprise that a Frenchman should be so well
acquainted with English--he scarcely observed that the name was French.
Simon's age seemed daily to bring him more and more to that state when
life is mere mechanism, and the soul, preparing for its departure, no
longer heeds the tenement that crumbles silently and neglected into
its lonely dust. Vaudemont came with but little luggage (for he had
an apartment also in London), and no attendant,--a single horse was
consigned to the stables of an inn at hand, and he seemed, as soldiers
are, more careful for the comforts of the animal than his own. There
was but one woman servant in the humble household, who did all the ruder
work, for Fanny's industry could afford it. The solitary servant and the
homely fare sufficed for the simple and hardy adventurer.