hoarse guttural tone of his voice. The sounds came from him as though steeped in brandy, and told, all too plainly, the havoc which the alcohol had made. There was a fire too about his eyes which contrasted with his sunken cheeks: his hanging jaw, unshorn beard, and haggard face were terrible to look at. His hands and arms were hot and clammy, but so thin and wasted! Of his lower limbs the lost use had not returned to him, so that in all his efforts at vehemence he was controlled by his own want of vitality. When he supported himself, half-sitting against the pillows, he was in a continual tremour; and yet, as he boasted, he could still lift his glass steadily to his mouth. Such now was the hero of whom that ready compiler of memoirs had just finished his correct and succinct account.
After he had had his brandy, he sat glaring a while at vacancy as though he was dead to all around him, and was thinking—thinking—thinking of things in the infinite distance of the past.
'Shall I go now,' said the doctor, 'and send Lady Scatcherd to you?'
'Wait a while, doctor; just one minute longer. So you will do nothing for Louis then?'
'I will do everything for him that I can do.'
'Ah, yes! everything but the one thing that will save him. Well, I will not ask you again. But remember, Thorne, I shall alter my will to-morrow.'
'Do so by all means; you may well alter it for the better. If I may advise you, you will have down your own business attorney from London. If you will let me send he will be here before to-morrow night.'
'Thank you for nothing, Thorne: I can manage that matter myself. Now leave me; but remember, you have ruined that girl's fortune.'
The doctor did leave him, and went not altogether happy to his room. He could not but confess to himself that he had, despite himself as it were, fed himself with hope that Mary's future might be made more secure, ay, and brighter too, by some small unheeded fraction broken off from the huge mass of her uncle's wealth. Such hope, if it had amounted to hope, was now all gone. But this was not all, nor was this the worst of it. That he had done right in utterly repudiating all idea of a marriage between Mary and her cousin—of that he was certain enough; that no earthly consideration would have induced Mary to plight her troth to such a man—that, with him, was as certain as doom. But how far had he done right in keeping her from the sight of her uncle? How could he justify it to himself if he had thus robbed her of her inheritance, seeing that he had done
