t whatever. Fancy what a noble sensation that would make! A Duke
could do no more.

It was very clear to him now that he desired to have children of his
own,--say two at least, a son and a daughter, or perhaps a son and
two daughters: two little girls would be company for each other. As he
prefigured these new beings, the son was to exist chiefly for purposes
of distinction and the dignity of heirship, and the paternal relations
with him would be always somewhat formal, and, though affectionate,
unexpansive. But the little girls--they would put their arms round their
father's neck, and walk out with him to see the pigs and the dogs, and
be the darlings of his heart. He would be an old man by the time they
grew up.

A beatific vision of himself took form in his mind--of himself growing
grey and pleasurably tired, surrounded by opulence and the demonstrative
respect of everybody, smiling with virtuous content as he strolled along
between his two daughters, miracles of beauty and tenderness, holding
each by a hand.

The entrance of a clerk broke abruptly upon this daydream. He had a
telegram in his hand, and Thorpe, rousing himself with an effort,
took the liver-coloured envelope, and looked blankly at it. Some weird
apprehension seized upon him, as if he belonged to the peasant class
which instinctively yokes telegrams and calamities together. He deferred
to this feeling enough to nod dismissal to the clerk, and then, when he
was again alone, slowly opened the message, and read it:

"Newcastle-on-Tyne, September 12. Our friend died at Edinboro this
morning. See you at hotel this evening.--Kervick."

What Thorpe felt at first was that his two daughters had shrunk from him
with swift, terrible aversion: they vanished, along with every phase of
the bright vision, under a pall of unearthly blackness. He stood in the
centre of a chill solitude, staring stupidly at the coarse, soft paper.

The premonition, then, had justified itself! Something had told him that
the telegram was an evil thing. A vaguely superstitious consciousness
of being in the presence of Fate laid hold upon him. His great day of
triumph had its blood-stain. A victim had been needful--and to that
end poor simple, silly old Tavender was a dead man. Thorpe could see
him,--an embarrassing cadaver eyed by strangers who did not know what to
do with it,--fatuous even in death.

A sudden rage at Kervick flamed up. He clearly had played the
fool--clumsily o