y open. He entered.
A narrow passage led into the hall. No embers brightened the huge
chimney. The table showed no relics of the feast,--no tokens of the past
night's revel. The deer's antlers still hung over the master's place at
the board, but the oaken chair was gone. Dust and desertion had played
strange antics in these "high places." The busy spider had wreathed her
dingy festoons in mockery over the pomp she degraded.

He listened, but there was no sound, save the last faint echo of his
footstep. Turning towards the staircase, a beautiful spaniel, a sort of
privileged favourite of Constance, came, with a deep growl, as if to
warn away the intruder. But the sagacious animal suddenly fawned upon
him, and with a low whine ascended the stairs, looking back wistfully,
as though inviting him to follow.

Scarcely knowing why, or bestowing one thought on the nature of his
intrusion, he ascended. The place seemed familiar to him. He entered a
narrow gallery, where he paused, overcome by some sudden and
overwhelming emotion. The dog stood too, looking back with a low and
sorrowful whine. With a sudden effort he grappled with and shook off the
dark spirit that threatened to overpower him. A low murmur was heard
apparently from a chamber at no great distance. Without reflecting a
moment on the impropriety of his situation, he hastily approached the
door. His guide, with a look of almost irresistible persuasion, implored
him to enter.

It was the chamber of Constance. A female was kneeling by the bed, too
much absorbed to be conscious of his approach: she was in the attitude
of prayer. He recognised the old nurse,--her eye glistening in the
fervour of devotion, whilst pouring forth, to her FATHER in secret, the
agony of soul that words are too feeble to express.

Bending over the bed, as if for the support of some frail victim of
disease, he beheld the lord of the mansion. His look was wild and
haggard;--no moisture floated over his eyeballs: they were glazed and
motionless; arid as the hot desert,--no refreshing rain dropped from
their burning orbs, dimmed with the shadows of despair.

Stretched on the bed, her pale cheek resting on the bosom of her father,
lay the yet beauteous form of Constance Holt. A hectic flush at times
passed across her features. Her lip, shrunk and parched with the fever
that consumed her, was moistened by an attendant with unremitting and
unwearied assiduity; her eye often rose in tenderness on