found something congenial, something
that did not mock him, in the frowns of the haggard and dismal Nature.
Vain would it be to describe what he then felt, what he then endured.
Suffice it that, through all, the diviner strength of man was not
wholly crushed, and that daily, nightly, hourly, he prayed to the Great
Comforter to assist him in wrestling against a guilty love. No man
struggles so honestly, so ardently as he did, utterly in vain; for in
us all, if we would but cherish it, there is a spirit that must rise at
last--a crowned, if bleeding conqueror--over Fate and all the Demons!

One day after a prolonged silence from Vargrave, whose letters all
breathed comfort and assurance in Evelyn's progressive recovery of
spirit and hope, his messenger returned from the post-town with a letter
in the hand of De Montaigne. It contained, in a blank envelope (De
Montaigne's silence told him how much he had lost in the esteem of his
friend), the communication of Lord Doltimore. It ran thus:--

MY DEAR SIR,--As I hear that your plans are likely to make you a long
resident on the Continent, may I again inquire if you would be induced
to dispose of Burleigh? I am willing to give more than its real value,
and would raise a mortgage on my own property sufficient to pay off, at
once, the whole purchase-money. Perhaps you may be the more induced to
the sale from the circumstance of having an example in the head of your
family, Colonel Maltravers, as I learn through Lord Vargrave, having
resolved to dispose of Lisle Court. Waiting your answer,

I am, dear Sir, truly yours,

DOLTIMORE.

"Ay," said Maltravers, bitterly, crushing the letter in his hand, "let
our name be blotted out from the land, and our hearths pass to the
stranger. How could I ever visit the place where I first saw _her_?"

He resolved at once,--he would write to England, and place the matter
in the hands of agents. This was but a short-lived diversion to his
thoughts, and their cloudy darkness soon gathered round him again.

What I am now about to relate may appear, to a hasty criticism, to
savour of the Supernatural; but it is easily accounted for by ordinary
agencies, and it is strictly to the letter of the truth.

In his sleep that night a dream appeared to Maltravers. He thought he
was alone in the old library at Burleigh, and gazing on the portrait
of his mother; as he so gazed, he fancied that a cold and awful tremor
seized upon him,