nd roll down her smiling face. She
had never, until this moment, reverted to that miserable day. "John,
do you think it possible the boy can be at home to-night?"

John answered emphatically, but very softly, "No."

"Why not? My letter would reach him in full time. Lord Ravenel has
been to Paris and back since then. But--" turning full upon the young
nobleman--"I think you said you had not seen Guy?"

"No."

"Did you hear anything of him?"

"I--Mrs. Halifax--"

Exceedingly distressed, almost beyond his power of self-restraint, the
young man looked appealingly to John, who replied for him:

"Lord Ravenel brought me a letter from Guy this morning."

"A letter from Guy--and you never told me. How very strange!"

Still, she seemed only to think it "strange." Some difficulty or folly
perhaps--you could see by the sudden flushing of her cheek, and her
quick, distrustful glance at Lord Ravenel, what she imagined it
was--that the boy had confessed to his father. With an instinct of
concealment--the mother's instinct--for the moment she asked no
questions.

We were all still standing at the hall-door. Unresisting, she suffered
her husband to take her arm in his and bring her into the study.

"Now--the letter, please! Children, go away; I want to speak to your
father. The letter, John?"

Her hand, which she held out, shook much. She tried to unfold the
paper--stopped, and looked up piteously.

"It is not to tell me he is not coming home? I can bear anything, you
know--but he MUST come."

John only answered, "Read,"--and took firm hold of her hand while she
read--as we hold the hand of one undergoing great torture,--which must
be undergone, and which no human love can either prepare for, or
remove, or alleviate.

The letter, which I saw afterwards, was thus:

"DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,

"I have disgraced you all. I have been drunk--in a gaming-house. A man
insulted me--it was about my father--but you will hear--all the world
will hear presently. I struck him--there was something in my hand,
and--the man was hurt.

"He may be dead by this time. I don't know.

"I am away to America to-night. I shall never come home any more. God
bless you all.

"GUY HALIFAX.

"P.S. I got my mother's letter to-day. Mother--I was not in my right
senses, or I should not have done it. Mother, darling! forget me.
Don't let me have broken your heart."

Alas, he had broken it!

"Never come home any more!