cholera and by three in the afternoon he was dead. The
suddenness of the catastrophe shocked Mr. Mitchelbourne inexpressibly.
He stood gazing at the still features of the man whom fear had, during
these last days, so grievously tormented, and was solemnly aware of
the vanity of those fears. He could not pretend to any great esteem
for his companion, but he made many suitable reflections upon the
shears of the Fates and the tenacity of life, in which melancholy
occupation he was interrupted by the doctor, who pointed out the
necessity of immediate burial. Seven o'clock the next morning was the
hour agreed upon, and Mitchelbourne at once searched in Lance's
coat pockets for the letters which he carried. There were only two,
superscribed respectively to Mrs. Ufford at "The Porch" near Glemham,
and to her daughter Brasilia. At "The Porch" Mitchelbourne remembered
Lance was expected this very evening, and he thought it right at once
to ride thither with his gloomy news.

Having, therefore, sprinkled the letters plentifully with vinegar and
taken such rough precautions as were possible to remove the taint of
infection from the letters, he started about four o'clock. The evening
was most melancholy. For, though no rain any longer fell, there was a
continual pattering of drops from the trees and a ghostly creaking of
branches in a light and almost imperceptible wind. The day, too, was
falling, the grey overhang of cloud was changing to black, except for
one wide space in the west, where a pale spectral light shone without
radiance; and the last of that was fading when he pulled up at a
parting of the roads and inquired of a man who chanced to be standing
there his way to "The Porch." He was directed to ride down the road
upon his left hand until he came to the second house, which he could
not mistake, for there was a dyke or moat about the garden wall. He
passed the first house a mile further on, and perhaps half a mile
beyond that he came to the dyke and the high garden wall, and saw the
gables of the second house loom up behind it black against the sky. A
wooden bridge spanned the dyke and led to a wide gate. Mitchelbourne
stopped his horse at the bridge. The gate stood open and he looked
down an avenue of trees into a square of which three sides were made
by the high garden wall, and the fourth and innermost by the house.
Thus the whole length of the house fronted him, and it struck him as
very singular that neither in the l