had a little calmed his
agitated feelings, he sat down and wrote a long letter to Elinor,
briefly stating what had taken place, and the necessity he was under of
leaving the Hall. He again repeated his vows of unshaken constancy;
assuring her that he was ready to make any sacrifice for her sake. He
begged her not to take the present trouble too deeply to heart, as he
felt certain that from the violence of the storm the danger would soon
be over.

The next morning he took a tender leave of his mother, and accepting the
invitation of a friend to spend some time with him in a distant county,
he bade, as he thought, a long farewell to the Hall.

From this visit he was recalled in a few weeks to attend the funeral of
his father, who died suddenly of gout in the stomach. After the remains
of the old Squire had been consigned to the family vault, Algernon
accompanied his mother and brother to the library to hear the reading of
the will. No suspicion that his father would realize his threat had ever
crossed his mind; and he was literally stunned when he found that his
unnatural parent had left all to his elder brother, and cut him off with
a shilling.

In a moment he comprehended the full extent of his misfortune. He had
been brought up a gentleman; he was now penniless--without money or
interest to secure a respectable situation, in which he might hope by
industry and perseverance to obtain a competency. Homeless and
friendless, whither could he go? How could he learn to forget what he
had been, what he might still be, and all that he had lost? He took up
his hat from the table on which his father's unjust testament lay, tore
from it the crape that surrounded it--that outward semblance of woe,
which in his case was a bitter mockery--and trampled it beneath his
feet. His mother raised her weeping eyes silently and imploringly to his
face. He returned to her side, pressed her hand affectionately between
his own, and casting a contemptuous glance upon his brother, quitted the
apartment, and, a few minutes after, the Hall.

When at a distance from the base wretch who had robbed him of his
patrimony, by poisoning his father's mind against him, Algernon gave
free vent to the anguish that oppressed him. Instead of seeking the
widow's cottage, and pouring into the bosom of Elinor the history of his
wrongs, he hurried to that very dell in the park which had witnessed his
brother's jealous agonies, and throwing himself at his full l