s they had
reared and ruined. He stood upon the highest vantage-point that he could
attain with safety, where a shaggy gnarl of the all-pervading ivy served
as a friendly stay. To the right and left and far behind him all had
once been their domain--every tree, and meadow, and rock that faced the
moon, had belonged to his ancestors. "Is it a wonder that I am fierce?"
he cried, with unwonted self-inspection; "who, that has been robbed as
I have, would not try to rob in turn? The only thing amazing is my
patience and my justice. But I will come back yet, and have my revenge."

Descending to his hyena den--as Charron always called it--he caught
up his packet, and took a lantern, and a coil of tow which had been
prepared, and strode forth for the last time into the sloping court
behind the walls. Passing towards the eastern vaults, he saw the form of
some one by the broken dial, above the hedge of brambles, which had
once been of roses and sweetbriar. "Oh, that woman! I had forgotten that
affair!" he muttered, with annoyance, as he pushed through the thorns to
meet her.

Polly Cheeseman, the former belle of Springhaven, was leaning against
the wrecked dial, with a child in her arms and a bundle at her feet.
Her pride and gaiety had left her now, and she looked very wan through
frequent weeping, and very thin from nursing. Her beauty (like her
friends) had proved unfaithful under shame and sorrow, and little of
it now remained except the long brown tresses and the large blue eyes.
Those eyes she fixed upon Carne with more of terror than of love in
them; although the fear was such as turns with a very little kindness to
adoring love.

Carne left her to begin, for he really was not without shame in this
matter; and Polly was far better suited than Dolly for a scornful and
arrogant will like his. Deeply despising all the female race--as the
Greek tragedian calls them--save only the one who had given him to the
world, he might have been a God to Polly if he had but behaved as a
man to her. She looked at him now with an imploring gaze, from the
gentleness of her ill-used heart.

Their child, a fine boy about ten months old, broke the silence by
saying "booh, booh," very well, and holding out little hands to his
father, who had often been scornfully kind to him.

"Oh, Caryl, Caryl, you will never forsake him!" cried the young mother,
holding him up with rapture, and supporting his fat arms in that
position; "he is the very i