yn, Paris, _via_ Dover.'

'I am old--agitated--on the eve of a decision on which much depends. Pray
relieve my suspense. Is my son to leave Bartram to-day in sorrow, or to
remain in joy? Pray answer quickly.'

I stammered I know not what. I was incoherent--wild, perhaps; but somehow
I expressed my meaning--my unalterable decision. I thought his lips grew
whiter and his eyes shone brighter as I spoke.

When I had quite made an end, he heaved a great sigh, and turning his eyes
slowly to the right and the left, like a man in a helpless distraction, he
whispered--

'God's will be done.'

I thought he was upon the point of fainting--a clay tint darkened the white
of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, looking with
a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it lay upon the table.

I stood gazing at him, feeling almost as if I had murdered the old man--he
still gazing askance, with an imbecile scowl, upon his hand.

'Shall I go, sir?' I at length found courage to whisper.

'_Go?_' he said, looking up suddenly; and it seemed to me as if a stream of
cold sheet-lightning had crossed and enveloped me for a moment.

'Go?--oh!--a--yes--_yes_, Maud--go. I must see poor Dudley before his
departure,' he added, as it were, in soliloquy.

Trembling lest he should revoke his permission to depart, I glided quickly
and noiselessly from the room.

Old Wyat was prowling outside, with a cloth in her hand, pretending to dust
the carved door-case. She frowned a stare of enquiry over her shrunken arm
on me, as I passed. Milly, who had been on the watch, ran and met me. We
heard my uncle's voice, as I shut the door, calling Dudley. He had been
waiting, probably, in the adjoining room. I hurried into my chamber, with
Milly at my side, and there my agitation found relief in tears, as that of
girlhood naturally does.

A little while after we saw from the window Dudley, looking, I thought,
very pale, get into a vehicle, on the top of which his luggage lay, and
drive away from Bartram.

I began to take comfort. His departure was an inexpressible relief. His
final departure! a distant journey!

We had tea in Milly's room that night. Firelight and candles are inspiring.
In that red glow I always felt and feel more safe, as well as more
comfortable, than in the daylight--quite irrationally, for we know the
night is the appointed day of such as love the darkness better than light,
and evil walks thereby. But so it is