on my mind for some time, grandpapa," begins
Marcia, who is pale and worn, through agitation and the effects of a
long and hopeless vigil. "I think it only right to let you know. I have
suppressed it all this time, because I feared distressing you; but
now--now--will you read this?"

She hands him, as she speaks, the letter received by Philip two months
before relative to his unlucky dealings with some London Jews.

In silence Mr. Amherst reads it, in silence re-reads it, and finally,
folding it up again, places it within his desk.

"You and Philip have quarreled?" he says, presently, in a quiet tone.

"No, there has been no quarrel."

"Your engagement is at an end?"

"Yes."

"And is this the result of last night's vaunted pleasures?" asks he,
keenly. "Have you snatched only pain and a sense of failure from its
fleeting hours? And Eleanor, too,--she was pale at luncheon, and for
once silent,--has she too found her coveted fruit rotten at its core?
It is the universal law," says the old man, grimly, consoling himself
with a pinch of snuff, taken with much deliberation from an exquisite
Louis Quinze box that rests at his elbow, and leaning back languidly in
his chair. "Life is made up of hopes false as the _ignis-fatuus_.
When with the greatest sense of security and promise of enjoyment we
raise and seek to drain the cup of pleasure, while yet we gaze with
longing eyes upon its sparkling bubbles, and, stooping thirstily,
suffer our expectant lips at length to touch it, lo! it is then, just
as we have attained to the summit of our bliss, we find our sweetest
draught has turned to ashes in our mouth."

He stops and drums softly on the table for a moment or two, while
Marcia stands before him silently pondering.

"So Philip is already counting on my death," he goes on, meditatively,
still softly tapping the table. "How securely he rests in the belief of
his succession! His father's son could scarcely fail to be a
spendthrift, and I will have--no--prodigal at Herst--to hew--and
cut--and scatter. A goodly heritage, truly, as Buscarlet called it. Be
satisfied, Marcia: your revenge is complete. Philip shall not inherit
Herst."

"I do not seek revenge," says Marcia, unsteadily, now her wish is
fulfilled and Philip hopelessly crushed, a cold, troubled faintness
creeping round her heart. An awful sense of despair, a fruitless
longing to recall her action, makes her tremble. "Only I could not bear
to see you longer dece