f some one had thrown himself
heavily on the bed. A silence followed, during which her sisters, who
had followed more timidly, joined her. She warned them with a look and
gesture to be silent.

Lady Haworth stood a little behind, her white lips moving, and her hands
clasped in a silent agony of prayer. Lady Mardykes leaned against the
massive oak door-case.

With her hand raised to her ear, and her lips parted, Lady Walsingham
listened for some seconds--for a minute, two minutes, three. At last,
losing heart, she seized the handle in her panic, and turned it sharply.
The door was locked on the inside, but some one close to it said from
within, "Hush, hush!"

Much alarmed now, the same lady knocked violently at the door. No answer
was returned.

She knocked again more violently, and shook the door with all her
fragile force. It was something of horror in her countenance as she did
so, that, no doubt, terrified Lady Mardykes, who with a loud and long
scream sank in a swoon upon the floor.

The servants, alarmed by these sounds, were speedily in the gallery.
Lady Mardykes was carried to her room, and laid upon her bed; her
sister, Lady Haworth, accompanying her. In the meantime the door was
forced. Sir Bale Mardykes was found stretched upon his bed.

Those who have once seen it, will not mistake the aspect of death. Here,
in Sir Bale Mardykes' room, in his bed, in his clothes, is a stranger,
grim and awful; in a few days to be insupportable, and to pass alone
into the prison-house, and to be seen no more.

Where is Sir Bale Mardykes now, whose roof-tree and whose place at board
and bed will know him no more? Here lies a chap-fallen, fish-eyed image,
chilling already into clay, and stiffening in every joint.

There is a marble monument in the pretty church of Golden Friars. It
stands at the left side of what antiquarians call "the high altar." Two
pillars at each end support an arch with several armorial bearings on as
many shields sculptured above. Beneath, on a marble flooring raised some
four feet, with a cornice round, lies Sir Bale Mardykes, of Mardykes
Hall, ninth Baronet of that ancient family, chiseled in marble with
knee-breeches and buckled-shoes, and _ailes de pigeon_, and
single-breasted coat and long waist-coat, ruffles and sword, such as
gentlemen wore about the year 1770, and bearing a strong resemblance to
the features of the second Charles. On the broad marble which forms the
background is inscrib