w more weeks; then he took the advice
of his physician to seek change of air and scene. He went away alone,
without even a servant, not leaving word where he had gone. After a
little while he returned, more ailing, more broken than before. One
morning he was found insensible,--stricken by paralysis. He regained
consciousness, and even for some days rallied strength. He might have
recovered, but he seemed as if he tacitly refused to live. He expired at
last, peacefully, in Graham's arms.

At the opening of his will it was found that he had left Graham his sole
heir and executor. Deducting government duties, legacies to servants,
and donations to public charities, the sum thus bequeathed to his lost
wife's nephew was two hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

With such a fortune, opening indeed was made for an ambition so long
obstructed. But Graham affected no change in his mode of life; he still
retained his modest bachelor's apartments, engaged no servants, bought
no horses, in no way exceeded the income he had possessed before. He
seemed, indeed, depressed rather than elated by the succession to a
wealth which he had never anticipated.

Two children had been born from the marriage of Richard King: they had
died young, it is true, but Lady Janet at the time of her own decease
was not too advanced in years for the reasonable expectation of other
offspring; and even after Richard King became a widower, he had given
to Graham no hint of his testamentary dispositions. The young man was no
blood-relation to him, and naturally supposed that such relations
would become the heirs. But in truth the deceased seemed to have no
blood-relations: none had ever been known to visit him; none raised a
voice to question the justice of his will.

Lady Janet had been buried at Kensal Green; her husband's remains were
placed in the same vault.

For days and days Graham went his way lonelily to the cemetery. He might
be seen standing motionless by that tomb, with tears rolling down his
cheeks; yet his was not a weak nature,--not one of those that love
indulgence of irremediable grief. On the contrary, people who did not
know him well said "that he had more head than heart," and the character
of his pursuits, as of his writings, was certainly not that of a
sentimentalist. He had not thus visited the tomb till Richard King had
been placed within it. Yet his love for his aunt was unspeakably greater
than that which he could have felt for he