tion of building there,
and making it once more a handsome residence.

In the improved state of his spirits, Sir Bale had taken a shrewd
interest in this negotiation; and was actually persuaded to cross the
lake that morning with his adviser, and to walk over the grounds with
him.

Sir Bale had seemed unusually well, and talked with great animation. He
was more like a young man who had just attained his majority, and for
the first time grasped his estates, than the grim elderly Baronet who
had been moping about Mardykes, and as much afraid as a cat of the
water, for so many years.

As they were returning toward the boat, at the roots of that same
scathed elm whose barkless bough had seemed, in his former visit to this
old wood, to beckon him from a distance, like a skeleton arm, to enter
the forest, he and his companion on a sudden missed an old map of the
grounds which they had been consulting.

"We must have left it in the corner tower of Cloostedd House, which
commands that view of the grounds, you remember; it would not do to lose
it. It is the most accurate thing we have. I'll sit down here and rest a
little till you come back."

The man was absent little more than twenty minutes. When he returned, he
found that Sir Bale had changed his position, and was now walking to and
fro, around and about, in what, at a distance, he fancied was mere
impatience, on the open space a couple of hundred paces nearer to the
turn in the valley towards the boat. It was not impatience. He was
agitated. He looked pale, and he took his companion's arm--a thing he
had never thought of doing before--and said, "Let us away quickly. I've
something to tell at home,--and I forgot it."

Not another word did Sir Bale exchange with his companion. He sat in the
stern of the boat, gloomy as a man about to glide under traitor's-gate.
He entered his house in the same sombre and agitated state. He entered
his library, and sat for a long time as if stunned.

At last he seemed to have made-up his mind to something; and applied
himself quietly and diligently to arranging papers, and docketing some
and burning others. Dinner-time arrived. He sent to tell Lady Mardykes
that he should not join her at dinner, but would see her afterwards.

"It was between eight and nine," she continued, "I forget the exact
time, when he came to the tower drawing-room where I was. I did not hear
his approach. There is a stone stair, with a thick carpet on it. He tol