arpets were
taken up (a single man's housekeeper is wonderfully provident in these
matters; the moment his back is turned, she bustles, she displaces, she
exults; "things can be put a little to rights!"). Even the fire would
not burn clear, but gleamed sullen and fitful from the smothering fuel.
It was a large chamber, and the lights imperfectly filled it. On
the table lay parliamentary papers, and pamphlets, and bills and
presentation-books from younger authors--evidences of the teeming
business of that restless machine the world. But of all this Maltravers
was not sensible: the winter frost numbed not his feverish veins. His
servant, who loved him, as all who saw much of Maltravers did, fidgeted
anxiously about the room, and plied the sullen fire, and laid out the
comfortable dressing-robe, and placed wine on the table, and asked
questions which were not answered, and pressed service which was not
heeded. The little wheels of life go on, even when the great wheel is
paralysed or broken. Maltravers was, if I may so express it, in a kind
of mental trance. His emotions had left him thoroughly exhausted. He
felt that torpor which succeeds and is again the precursor of great woe.
At length he was alone, and the solitude half unconsciously restored
him to the sense of his heavy misery. For it may be observed, that
when misfortune has stricken us home, the presence of any one seems to
interfere between the memory and the heart. Withdraw the intruder, and
the lifted hammer falls at once upon the anvil! He rose as the door
closed on his attendant--rose with a start, and pushed the hat from his
gathered brows. He walked for some moments to and fro, and the air of
the room, freezing as it was, oppressed him.

There are times when the arrow quivers within us--in which all space
seems too confined. Like the wounded hart, we could fly on for ever;
there is a vague desire of escape--a yearning, almost insane, to get out
from our own selves: the soul struggles to flee away, and take the wings
of the morning.

Impatiently, at last, did Maltravers throw open his window; it
communicated with a balcony, built out to command the wide view which,
from a certain height, that part of the park affords. He stepped into
the balcony and bared his breast to the keen air. The uncomfortable and
icy heavens looked down upon the hoar-rime that gathered over the grass,
and the ghostly boughs of the deathlike trees. All things in the world
without br