posing that I
could prevail upon myself to admit this extraordinary person into my
confidence, what would be the result? Should I be the gainer or the
loser by the resemblance which he fancied he had discovered? Would the
sight of me console him or pain him? I waited eagerly to hear more on
the subject of the first wife. Not a word more escaped his lips. A new
change came over him. He lifted his head with a start, and looked about
him as a weary man might look if he was suddenly disturbed in a deep
sleep.

"What have I done?" he said. "Have I been letting my mind drift again?"
He shuddered and sighed. "Oh, that house of Gleninch!" he murmured,
sadly, to himself. "Shall I never get away from it in my thoughts? Oh,
that house of Gleninch!"

To my infinite disappointment, Mrs. Macallan checked the further
revelation of what was passing in his mind.

Something in the tone and manner of his allusion to her son's
country-house seemed to have offended her. She interposed sharply and
decisively.

"Gently, my friend, gently!" she said. "I don't think you quite know
what you are talking about."

His great blue eyes flashed at her fiercely. With one turn of his hand
he brought his chair close at her side. The next instant he caught her
by the arm, and forced her to bend to him, until he could whisper in
her ear. He was violently agitated. His whisper was loud enough to make
itself heard where I was sitting at the time.

"I don't know what I am talking about?" he repeated, with his eyes fixed
attentively, not on my mother-in-law, but on me. "You shortsighted
old woman! where are your spectacles? Look at her! Do you see no
resemblance--the figure, not the face!--do you see no resemblance there
to Eustace's first wife?"

"Pure fancy!" rejoined Mrs. Macallan. "I see nothing of the sort."

He shook her impatiently.

"Not so loud!" he whispered. "She will hear you."

"I have heard you both," I said. "You need have no fear, Mr. Dexter, of
speaking before me. I know that my husband had a first wife, and I know
how miserably she died. I have read the Trial."

"You have read the life and death of a martyr!" cried Miserrimus Dexter.
He suddenly wheeled his chair my way; he bent over me; his eyes filled
with tears. "Nobody appreciated her at her true value," he said, "but
me. Nobody but me! nobody but me!"

Mrs. Macallan walked away impatiently to the end of the room.

"When you are ready, Valeria, I am," she said. "We cannot