uld hesitate about his wife," said she.

I saw all at once, like the rending of a veil, how nobly she had borne
this unnatural calamity, and how generously my reproaches.

"We must go back and tell this to my lord," said I.

"Him I cannot face," she cried.

"You will find him the least moved of all of us," said I.

"And yet I cannot face him," said she.

"Well," said I, "you can return to Mr. Henry; I will see my lord."

As we walked back, I bearing the candlesticks, she the sword--a strange
burthen for that woman--she had another thought. "Should we tell Henry?"
she asked.

"Let my lord decide," said I.

My lord was nearly dressed when I came to his chamber. He heard me with
a frown. "The free-traders," said he. "But whether dead or alive?"

"I thought him----" said I, and paused, ashamed of the word.

"I know; but you may very well have been in error. Why should they
remove him if not living?" he asked. "O! here is a great door of hope.
It must be given out that he departed--as he came--without any note of
preparation. We must save all scandal."

I saw he had fallen, like the rest of us, to think mainly of the house.
Now that all the living members of the family were plunged in
irremediable sorrow, it was strange how we turned to that conjoint
abstraction of the family itself, and sought to bolster up the airy
nothing of its reputation: not the Duries only, but the hired steward
himself.

"Are we to tell Mr. Henry?" I asked him.

"I will see," said he. "I am going first to visit him; then I go forth
with you to view the shrubbery and consider."

We went downstairs into the hall. Mr. Henry sat by the table with his
head upon his hand, like a man of stone. His wife stood a little back
from him, her hand at her mouth; it was plain she could not move him. My
old lord walked very steadily to where his son was sitting; he had a
steady countenance, too, but methought a little cold. When he was come
quite up, he held out both his hands and said, "My son!"

With a broken, strangled cry, Mr. Henry leaped up and fell on his
father's neck, crying and weeping, the most pitiful sight that ever a
man witnessed. "O! father," he cried, "you know I loved him; you know I
loved him in the beginning; I could have died for him--you know that! I
would have given my life for him and you. O! say you know that. O! say
you can forgive me. O, father, father, what have I done--what have I
done? And we used to be bairns together