some bad end, and bring disgrace
upon his family and himself. And then the squire's own heart began to
smite him, and he thought: Am not I to blame for not having looked more
closely after him, and for not having corrected him whenever he went
wrong? I must do something at once. I must send him away from this
place, where almost every one lets him do as he likes, until he learns
how to control himself, at least so far as not to do injustice to
others.

Meanwhile the young squire's punishment had begun. When left to the
solitude of his room, after having heard the whole of Leonard Dobbin's
account of Jacob's death, a great horror took possession of his mind.
Many were the efforts the young lad made to shake off the gloomy
thoughts which came trooping into his mind; but every thought seemed to
have a hundred hooks by which it clung to the memory, so that once in
the mind, it could not be got rid of again. At length the young squire
lay down upon his bed, trembling as if he had the ague, and realizing
how true are the words, that "our sin will find us out," and that "the
way of transgressors is hard."

At last, to his great relief, the handle of his door was turned, and old
Aggie made her appearance.

"O Aggie, Aggie," cried James Courtenay, "come here. I'm fit to die,
with the horrid thoughts I have, and with the dreadful things I see. Jim
Meyers said I murdered Jacob Dobbin; and I believe I have, though I
didn't intend to do it. I wish I had never gone that way; I wish I had
never seen that rose; I wish there had never been a rose in the
world.--O dear, my poor head, my poor head! I think 'twill burst;" and
James Courtenay put his two hands upon the two sides of his head, as
though he wanted to keep them from splitting asunder.

Aggie saw that there was no use in speaking while James Courtenay's head
was in such a state as this. All she could do was to help him into bed,
and give him something to drink,--food he put from him, but drink he
asked for again and again. Water was all he craved, but Aggie was at
last obliged to give over, and say she was afraid to give him any more.

James Courtenay's state was speedily made known to his father, and in a
few minutes, from old Aggie's conversation with him, the groom was on
his way to a neighbouring town to hasten the family physician. The
latter soon arrived, and, after a few minutes with James Courtenay,
pronounced him to be in brain fever--the end of which, of course,