apartments for the living, at the hall, were much larger than was
that one destined for the dead.

The atmosphere was dump and noisome, but not by any means so bad as
might have been expected, considering the number of months which had
elapsed since last the vault was opened to receive one of its ghastly
and still visitants.

"Now for one of your lights. Mr. Chillingworth. You say you have the
candles, I think, Marchdale, although you forgot the matches."

"I have. They are here."

Marchdale took from his pocket a parcel which contained several wax
candles, and when it was opened, a smaller packet fell to the ground.

"Why, these are instantaneous matches," said Mr. Chillingworth, as he
lifted the small packet up.

"They are; and what a fruitless journey I should have had back to the
hall," said Mr. Marchdale, "if you had not been so well provided as you
are with the means of getting a light. These matches, which I thought I
had not with me, have been, in the hurry of departure, enclosed, you
see, with the candles. Truly, I should have hunted for them at home in
vain."

Mr. Chillingworth lit the wax candle which was now handed to him by
Marchdale, and in another moment the vault from one end of it to the
other was quite clearly discernible.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE COFFIN.--THE ABSENCE OF THE DEAD.--THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE, AND
THE CONSTERNATION OF GEORGE.

[Illustration]

They were all silent for a few moments as they looked around them with
natural feelings of curiosity. Two of that party had of course never
been in that vault at all, and the brothers, although they had descended
into it upon the occasion, nearly a year before, of their father being
placed in it, still looked upon it with almost as curious eyes as they
who now had their first sight of it.

If a man be at all of a thoughtful or imaginative cast of mind, some
curious sensations are sure to come over him, upon standing in such a
place, where he knows around him lie, in the calmness of death, those in
whose veins have flowed kindred blood to him--who bore the same name,
and who preceded him in the brief drama of his existence, influencing
his destiny and his position in life probably largely by their actions
compounded of their virtues and their vices.

Henry Bannerworth and his brother George were just the kind of persons
to feel strongly such sensations. Both were reflective, imaginative,
educated young men, and, as the light fro