rn
dead.'

'They lie!' he said, fiercely, starting up. 'It cried twice after
it was born!'

Lancelot stood horror-struck.

'I heard it last night, and the night before that, and the night
before that again, under my pillow, shrieking--stifling--two little
squeaks, like a caught hare; and I tore the pillows off it--I did;
and once I saw it, and it had beautiful black eyes--just like its
father--just like a little miniature that used to lie on my mother's
table, when I knelt at her knee, before they sent me out "to see
life," and Eton, and the army, and Crockford's, and Newmarket, and
fine gentlemen, and fine ladies, and luxury, and flattery, brought
me to this! Oh, father! father! was that the only way to make a
gentleman of your son?--There it is again! Don't you hear it?--
under the sofa cushions! Tear them off! Curse you! Save it!'

And, with a fearful oath, the wretched man sent Lancelot staggering
across the room, and madly tore up the cushions.

A long postman's knock at the door.--He suddenly rose up quite
collected.

'The letter! I knew it would come. She need not have written it:
I know what is in it.'

The servant's step came up the stairs. Poor Bracebridge turned to
Lancelot with something of his own stately determination.

'I must be alone when I receive this letter. Stay here.' And with
compressed lips and fixed eyes he stalked out at the door, and shut
it.

Lancelot heard him stop; then the servant's footsteps down the
stairs; then the colonel's treading, slowly and heavily, went step
by step up to the room above. He shut that door too. A dead
silence followed. Lancelot stood in fearful suspense, and held his
breath to listen. Perhaps he had fainted? No, for then he would
have heard a fall. Perhaps he had fallen on the bed? He would go
and see. No, he would wait a little longer. Perhaps he was
praying? He had told Lancelot to pray once--he dared not interrupt
him now. A slight stir--a noise as of an opening box. Thank God,
he was, at least, alive! Nonsense! Why should he not be alive?
What could happen to him? And yet he knew that something was going
to happen. The silence was ominous--unbearable; the air of the room
felt heavy and stifling, as if a thunderstorm were about to burst.
He longed to hear the man raging and stamping. And yet he could not
connect the thought of one so gay and full of gallant life, with the
terrible dread