motions from her elevated station above the court he trod, she could not ascertain precisely whether he had entered the door of the staircase leading to the story they inhabited. She feared to indulge hope; nevertheless, an irresistible emotion ominous of good throbbed at her heart, and to which she was about to give utterance: having already apprised her husband she suspected the stranger was to him, a sudden paleness overspread his countenance, his mind still haunted by some recollection of the brutal intrusion of his creditors, supposed to have been at the instigation of his father.
Footsteps now approached, a knock was heard without; De Brooke hastily demanded who was there. The reply was in a voice unknown to him. Giving his name, he begged admittance, adding that his business was important, and that it would be inconvenient to call again. His suspicions diminishing, De Brooke obeyed, whilst his unconscious wife, ignorant as to any cause that could give rise to agitation, as the door opened, the object who had previously engaged her scrutiny stood before her.
His deportment was by no means such as to keep alive the favourable impression she had felt upon first seeing him. Unprepossessing, cold, and distant, he accepted De Brooke's offered chair. With a downcast eye he surveyed the scanty cham-
