m the wax candle flashed upon
their faces, it was evident how deeply they felt the situation in which
they were placed.

Mr. Chillingworth and Marchdale were silent. They both knew what was
passing in the minds of the brothers, and they had too much delicacy to
interrupt a train of thought which, although from having no affinity
with the dead who lay around, they could not share in, yet they
respected. Henry at length, with a sudden start, seemed to recover
himself from his reverie.

"This is a time for action, George," he said, "and not for romantic
thought. Let us proceed."

"Yes, yes," said George, and he advanced a step towards the centre of
the vault.

"Can you find out among all these coffins, for there seem to be nearly
twenty," said Mr. Chillingworth, "which is the one we seek?"

"I think we may," replied Henry. "Some of the earlier coffins of our
race, I know, were made of marble, and others of metal, both of which
materials, I expect, would withstand the encroaches of time for a
hundred years, at least."

"Let us examine," said George.

There were shelves or niches built into the walls all round, on which
the coffins were placed, so that there could not be much difficulty in a
minute examination of them all, the one after the other.

When, however, they came to look, they found that "decay's offensive
fingers" had been more busy than they could have imagined, and that
whatever they touched of the earlier coffins crumbled into dust before
their very fingers.

In some cases the inscriptions were quite illegible, and, in others, the
plates that had borne them had fallen on to the floor of the vault, so
that it was impossible to say to which coffin they belonged.

Of course, the more recent and fresh-looking coffins they did not
examine, because they could not have anything to do with the object of
that melancholy visit.

"We shall arrive at no conclusion," said George. "All seems to have
rotted away among those coffins where we might expect to find the one
belonging to Marmaduke Bannerworth, our ancestor."

"Here is a coffin plate," said Marchdale, taking one from the floor.

He handed it to Mr. Chillingworth, who, upon an inspection of it, close
to the light, exclaimed,--

"It must have belonged to the coffin you seek."

"What says it?"

"Ye mortale remains of Marmaduke Bannerworth, Yeoman. God reste his
soule. A.D. 1540."

"It is the plate belonging to his coffin," said Henry, "and now ou