fe. He then freed himself
from Herkimer's grasp by a subtle motion, and, gliding through the
gate, took refuge in his antiquated family residence. The sculptor did
not pursue him. He saw that no available intercourse could be expected
at such a moment, and was desirous, before another meeting, to inquire
closely into the nature of Roderick's disease and the circumstances
that had reduced him to so lamentable a condition. He succeeded in
obtaining the necessary information from an eminent medical gentleman.

Shortly after Elliston's separation from his wife--now nearly four
years ago--his associates had observed a singular gloom spreading over
his daily life, like those chill, gray mists that sometimes steal away
the sunshine from a summer's morning. The symptoms caused them endless
perplexity. They knew not whether ill health were robbing his spirits
of elasticity, or whether a canker of the mind was gradually eating, as
such cankers do, from his moral system into the physical frame, which
is but the shadow of the former. They looked for the root of this
trouble in his shattered schemes of domestic bliss,--wilfully shattered
by himself,--but could not be satisfied of its existence there. Some
thought that their once brilliant friend was in an incipient stage of
insanity, of which his passionate impulses had perhaps been the
forerunners; others prognosticated a general blight and gradual
decline. From Roderick's own lips they could learn nothing. More than
once, it is true, he had been heard to say, clutching his hands
convulsively upon his breast,--"It gnaws me! It gnaws me!"--but, by
different auditors, a great diversity of explanation was assigned to
this ominous expression. What could it be that gnawed the breast of
Roderick Elliston? Was it sorrow? Was it merely the tooth of physical
disease? Or, in his reckless course, often verging upon profligacy, if
not plunging into its depths, had he been guilty of some deed which
made his bosom a prey to the deadlier fangs of remorse? There was
plausible ground for each of these conjectures; but it must not be
concealed that more than one elderly gentleman, the victim of good
cheer and slothful habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the
whole matter to be Dyspepsia!

Meanwhile, Roderick seemed aware how generally he had become the
subject of curiosity and conjecture, and, with a morbid repugnance to
such notice, or to any notice whatsoever, estranged himself from all