toils, to meet such aethereal welcome as it could find.

Mr. Bertram had been told, and had answered, that he supposed as
much. "A man when he was too old to live must die," he had said,
"though all the Sir Omicrons in Europe should cluster round his bed.
It was only throwing money away. What, twenty pounds!" And being too
weak to scold, he had turned his face to the wall in sheer vexation
of spirit. Death he could encounter like a man; but why should he be
robbed in his last moments?

"You'll go down to him, master George," wheezed out poor Pritchett.
"Though it's too late for any good. It's all arranged now, of
course."

Bertram said that he would go down immediately, irrespective of
any such arrangements. And then, remembering of whom that Hadley
household had consisted when he left England in the early winter, he
asked as to the two ladies.

"Miss Baker is there, of course?"

"Oh, yes, Miss Baker is there. She doesn't go to any furren parts,
master George."

"And--and--"

"Yes, she's in the house, too--poor creature--poor creature!"

"Then how am I to go there?" said George, speaking rather to himself
than to Mr. Pritchett.

"What! you wouldn't stay away from him now because of that? You ought
to go to him, master George, though there were ten Lady Harcourts
there--or twenty." This was said in a tone that was not only serious,
but full of melancholy. Mr. Pritchett had probably never joked in his
life, and had certainly never been less inclined to do so than now,
when his patron was dying, and all his patron's money was to go into
other and into unknown hands.

Some other information Bertram received from his most faithful ally.
Sir Henry had been three times to Hadley, but he had only once
succeeded in seeing Mr. Bertram, and then the interview had been
short, and, as Mr. Pritchett surmised, not very satisfactory. His
last visit had been since that paid by Sir Omicron, and on that
occasion the sick man had sent out to say that he could not see
strangers. All this Mr. Pritchett had learnt from Miss Baker. Sir
Henry had not seen his wife since that day--now nearly twelve months
since--on which she had separated herself from him. He had made a
formal application to her to return to him, but nothing had come
of it; and Mr. Pritchett took upon himself to surmise again, that
Sir Henry was too anxious about the old gentleman's money to take
any steps that could be considered severe, until--. And then Mr.
Pri