he bedclothes; and then, with
a horrible cry, he fell back upon the pillow, as a faint stream of red
blood trickled from his nostril and ran down his chin.

"It 's all over now!" whispered the doctor.

"Is he dead?" said Basset.

The other made no reply; but drawing the curtains close, he turned away,
and they both moved noiselessly from the room.

CHAPTER II. DARBY THE "BLAST."

If there are dreams which, by their vividness and accuracy of detail,
seem altogether like reality, so are there certain actual passages in
our lives which, in their indistinctness while occurring, and in the
faint impression they leave behind them, seem only as mere dreams. Most
of our early sorrows are of this kind. The warm current of our young
hearts would appear to repel the cold touch of affliction; nor can grief
at this period do more than breathe an icy chill upon the surface of our
affections, where all is glowing and fervid beneath. The struggle
then between the bounding heart and the depressing care renders our
impressions of grief vague and ill defined.

A stunning sense of some great calamity, some sorrow without hope,
mingled in my waking thoughts with a childish notion of freedom.
Unloved, uncared for, my early years presented but few pleasures. My
boyhood had been a long struggle to win some mark of affection from one
who cared not for me, and to whom still my heart had clung, as does the
drowning man to the last plank of all the wreck. The tie that bound me
to him was now severed, and I was without-one in the wide world to look
up to or to love.

I looked out from my window upon the bleak country. A heavy snowstorm
had fallen during the night. A lowering sky of leaden hue stretched
above the dreary landscape, across which no living thing was seen to
move. Within doors all was silent. The doctor and the attorney had both
taken their departure; the deep wheel-track in the snow marked the
road they had followed. The servants, seated around the kitchen fire,
conversed in low and broken whispers. The only sound that broke the
stillness was the ticking of the clock upon the stair. There was
something that smote heavily on my heart in the monotonous ticking of
that clock: that told of time passing beside him who had gone; that
seemed to speak of minutes close to one whose minutes were eternity. I
crept into the room where the dead body lay, and as my tears ran fast, I
bent over it. I thought sometimes the expression of tho