Next morning Powys was up early, with his wise resolution very strong in his mind. He seemed to see the folly of it all more clearly in the morning light. Such a thing might be possible in Canada; but in this conventional artificial existence there were a hundred things more important than love or happiness. Even that, too, he felt was an artificial way of looking at it; for, after all, let the laws of existence be ever so simple, a man who has already a family to support, and very little to do it on, is mad, and worse than mad, if he tries to drag a girl down into the gulf of poverty with him. And as for Sara having enough for both, Powys himself was not sufficiently unconventional and simple-minded to take up that idea. Accordingly he felt that the only thing to do was to go away; he had been crazy to think of any thing else, but now his sanity had returned to him. He was one of the earliest of the party down stairs, and he did not feel himself so much out of place at the breakfast-table; and when the young men went out, Jack, by way of keeping the dangerous visitor out of his sister’s way, condescended to be civil, and invited him to join the shooting-party. Powys declined the invitation. “I am going to the office with Mr. Brownlow,” he said, a decision which was much more satisfactory to Jack.

“Oh, I thought you had come for a few days,” said Jack. “I beg your pardon; not that the sport is much to offer any one—the birds are getting scarce; but I thought you had come for some days.”

“No, I am going back to-day,” said Powys, not without a strangled inaudible sigh; for the sight of the dogs and the guns went to his heart a little, notwithstanding his love and despair. And Jack’s conscience pricked him that he did not put in a word of remonstrance. He knew well enough that Powys had not meant to go away, and he felt a certain compunction and even sympathy. But he reflected that, after all, it was far best for himself that every pretension should be checked in the bud. Powys stood on the steps looking after them as they went away; and it can not be denied that his feelings were dreary. It seemed hard to be obliged to deny himself every thing, not happiness alone, but even a little innocent amusement, such as reminded him of the freedom of his youth. He was too manly to grumble, but yet he felt it, and could not deny himself the pleasure of wondering how “these fellows” would like the prairies, and whether they would disperse in double-quick time if a bear or a pack of wolves came down upon them in place of their innocent partridges. No doubt “these fellows” would have stood the trial extremely well, and at another moment Powys would not have doubted that; but in the mean time a little sneer was a comfort to him. The dog-cart came up as he waited, and Mr. Brownlow made his appearance in his careful morning-dress, perfectly calm, composed, and steady as usual—a man whose very looks gave consolation to a client in trouble. But yet the lines of his face were a little haggard, if there had been any body there with eyes to see. “What, Powys!” he said, “not gone with the others?” He said it with a smile, and yet it raised a commotion in his mind. If he had not gone with the others, Mr. Brownlow naturally concluded it must be for Sara’s sake, and that the crisis was very near at hand.

“No, sir,” said Powys; “in fact I thought of going in with you to the office, if you will take me. It is the fittest place for me.”

Then it occurred to Mr. Brownlow that the young man had spoken and had been rejected, and the thought thrilled him through and through, but still he tried to make light of it. “Nonsense,” he said; “I did not bring you up last night to take you down this morning. You want a holiday. Don’t set up having an old head on young shoulders, but stay and enjoy yourself. I don’t want you at the office to-day.”

“If an old head means a wise one, I can’t much boast of that,” said Powys; and then he saw Sara standing in the door-way of the dining-room looking at him, and his heart melted within him. One more day! he would not say a word, not a word, however he might be tempted; and what harm could it do any one? “I think I ought to go,” he added, faintly; but the resolution had melted out of his words.

“Nonsense!” said Mr. Brownlow, from the dog-cart, and he waved his hand, and the mare set off at her usual pace down the avenue, waiting for no one. And Powys was left alone standing on the steps. The young men had gone who might have been in the way, and the ladies had already dispersed from the breakfast-table, some to the morning-room on the other side of the hall, some up stairs for their hats and cloaks, before straying out on their morning perambulations. And Sara, who had her housekeeping to do, save the mark! was the only creature visible to whom he turned as her father drove away. Courtesy required (so she said to herself) that she should go forward into the hall a step or two, and say something good-natured to him. “If you are not of Jack’s party,” she said, “you must go and help to amuse the people who are staying at home; unless you want to write or do any thing, Mr. Powys. The library is on that side; shall I show you the way?”

And a minute after he found himself following her into the room, which was the first room he had ever been in at Brownlows. It was foolish of Sara—it was a little like the way in which she had treated him before. Her own heart was beating more quickly than usual, and yet she was chiefly curious to know what he would do, what he would say. There was something of the eagerness of an experiment in her mind, although she had found it very serious after he left her the last time, and any thing but amusing on the previous night.

“Thanks,” said poor Powys, whose head was turning round and round; “I ought to have gone to the office. I am better there than here.”

“That is not very complimentary to us,” said Sara, with a little nervous laugh.

And then he turned and looked at her. She was making a fool of him, as Jack would have said. She was torturing him, playing with him, making her half-cruel, half-rash experiment. “You should not say so,” he said, with vehemence—“you know better. You should not tempt me to behave like an idiot. You know I am ready enough to do it. If I were not an idiot I should never have come here again.”

“Not when my father brought you?” said Sara—“not when I—but I think you are rude, Mr. Powys; I will leave you to write your letters, and when you have finished you will find us all up stairs.”

With that she vanished, leaving the young man in such a confusion of mind as words would ill describe. He was angry, humiliated, vexed with himself, rapt into a kind of ecstasy. He did not know if he was most wretched or happy. Every thing forbade him saying another word to her; and yet had not her father brought him, as she said? was not she herself surrounding him with subtle sweet temptation? He threw himself down in a chair and tried to think. When that would not do, he got up and began to pace about the room. Then he rushed suddenly to the door, not to fly away from the place, or to throw himself at Sara’s feet, as might have been supposed. What he did was to make a wild dash at his traveling-bag, which had been packed and brought into the hall. It was still standing there, a monument of his irresolution. He plunged at it, seized it, carried it into the library, and there unpacked it again with nervous vehemence. Any one who should have come in and seen his collars and handkerchiefs scattered about on the floor would have thought Powys mad. But at length, when he had got to the bottom of the receptacle, his object became apparent. From thence he produced a bundle of papers, yellow and worn, and tied up with a ribbon. When he had disinterred them, it was not without a blush, though there was nobody to see, that he packed up every thing again in the capacious traveling-bag. He had gone into Mr. Brownlow’s library because Sara took him there, without a thought of any thing to do, but suddenly here was his work ready for him. He sat down in Mr. Brownlow’s chair, and opened out the papers before him, and read and arranged and laid them out in order. When he had settled them according to his satisfaction, he made another pause to think, and then began to write. It was a letter which demanded thought; or at least it appeared so, for he wrote it hotly three times over, and tore it up each time; and on the fourth occasion, which was the last, wrote slowly, pausing over his sentences and biting his nails. The letter which cost all this trouble was not very long. Judging by the size of it, any body might have written it in five minutes; but Powys felt his hand trembling and his brain throbbing with the exertion when he had done. Then he folded it up carefully and put it into an envelope, and addressed it to Mr. Brownlow, leaving it with the bundle of papers on his employer’s writing-table. When he had accomplished this he sat for some time irresolute, contemplating his packet on the table, and pondering what should follow. He had put it to the touch to win or lose, but in the mean time what was he to do? She had said he would find them up stairs. She had implied that he would be expected there; and to spend the day beside her would have been a kind of heaven to him; but that was a paradise which he had himself forfeited. He could not be in her company now as any other man might. He had said too much, had committed himself too deeply. He had betrayed the secret which another man more reticent might have kept, undisclosed in words, and it was impossible for him to be with her as another might. Even she, though she had never said a word to him that could be construed into encouragement, except those half dozen words at the library door, was different toward him and other men. She was conscious too; she remembered what he had said. He and she could not be together without remembering it, without carrying on, articulately or inarticulately, that broken interview. Powys did the only thing that remained to him to do. He did not bound forth in the track of the dog-cart, and follow it to Masterton, though that would not have been difficult to him; but he went out into the park, and roamed all about the house in widening circles, hearing sometimes the crack of the guns in the distance, sometimes in alleys close at hand the sound of voices, sometimes catching, as he thought, the very rustle of Sara’s dress. He avoided them with much care and pains, and yet he would have been glad to meet them; glad to come upon the shooting-party, though he kept far from the spot where he had heard they were to meet some of the ladies and lunch. It was not for him to seek a place among them. Thus he wandered about, not feeling forlorn or disconsolate, as a man might be supposed to do under such circumstances, but, on the contrary, excited and hopeful. He had set forth what he felt was his best claim to consideration before her father. If Mr. Brownlow had not treated him with such inconceivable favor and indulgence, he never would have ventured upon this. But he had been favored,—he had been encouraged. Grace had been shown to him enough to turn any young man’s head, and he knew no reason for it. And at last he had ventured to lay before Mr. Brownlow those distant problematical claims to gentility which were all the inheritance he had, and to tell him what was in his mind. He was not a victim kept out of Paradise. He was a pilgrim of hope, keeping the gates in sight, and feeling, permitting himself to feel, as if they might open any moment and he might be called in.

While this was going on it happened to him, as it happens so often, to come direct in the way of the very meeting which he had so carefully avoided. Turning round the corner of a great old yew, hanging rich with scarlet berries, he came all of a sudden, and without any warning, upon Sara herself, walking quickly from the village with a little basket in her hand. If it was difficult to meet her with a body-guard of ladies in the shelter of her father’s house, it may be supposed what it was to meet her in the silence, without another soul in sight, her face flaming with sudden recognition and confusion. Powys stood still, and for a moment speculated whether he should not fly; but it was only that moment of consideration that fled, and he found himself turning by her side, and taking her basket from her hand. She was no more mistress of the situation than he was: she was taken by surprise. The calm with which she had led the way into the library that morning, secure in her office of mistress of the house, had vanished away. She began hurriedly, eagerly, to say where she had been, and how it happened that she was returning alone. “The rest went off to the rectory,” she said. “Have you seen it? I think it is such a pretty house. They went to see Fanny Hardcastle. You have met her—I know you have, or I would not have mentioned her,” said Sara, with a breathless desire to hear her own voice, which was unlike her. The sound of it gave her a little courage, and perhaps if she spoke a little loud and fast, it might attract some stray member of the party who might be wandering near. But no one came; and there were the two together, alone, in the position of all others most difficult in the circumstances—the green, silent park around them, not an eye to see nor an ear to hear; the red October sunshine slanting across their young figures, catching the ripple in Sara’s hair as it had done that day, never to be forgotten, on which he first saw her. This was how fate or fortune, or some good angel or some wicked fairy, defeated Powys’s prudent intention of keeping out of harm’s way.

“But I wonder you did not go with Jack,” Sara resumed. “I should, if I had been you. Not that I should care to kill the poor birds—but it seems to come natural at this time of the year. Did you have much sport in Canada? or do you think it stupid when people talk to you of Canada? Every body does, I know, as soon as they hear you have been there.”

“You never could say any thing that was stupid,” said Powys, and then he paused, for he did not mean to get upon dangerous ground—honestly, he did not mean it, if circumstances had not been too strong for him. “Canada is a kind of common ground,” he said. “It is a good thing to begin conversation on. It is not easy to exhaust it; but people are sadly ignorant,” he added, with lively colonial feeling. He was scornful, in short, of the ignorance he met with. Even Mr. Brownlow talked, he could not but recollect, like a charity-school boy on this subject, and he took refuge in his nationality as a kind of safeguard.

“Yes, I know I am very ignorant,” said Sara, with humility. “Tell me about Canada. I should like to learn.”

These words shook Powys sadly. It did not occur to him that she was as glad as he was to plunge into a foreign subject. There sounded something soft and confiding in the tone, and his heart gave a leap, as it were, toward her. “And I should like to teach you,” he said, a little too warmly, and then stopped short, and then began hastily again. “Miss Brownlow, I think I will carry your basket home and leave you by yourself. I can not be near without remembering things, and saying things. Don’t despise me—I could nor bear to think you despised me.” He said this with growing agitation, but he did not quicken his steps or make any attempt to leave her; he only looked at her piteously, clasping the slender handle of her little basket in both his hands.

“Why should I despise you, Mr. Powys? I don’t like Americans,” said Sara, demurely; “but you are not American—you are English, like all the rest of us. Tell me about Niagara and the Indians, and the backwoods and the skating and the snow. You see I am not quite so ignorant. And then your little sisters and your mother, do they like being at home? Tell me their names and how old they are,” said Sara, herself becoming a little tremulous. “I am fond of little girls.”

And then there ensued a breathless, tremendous pause. He would have fled if he could, but there was no possibility of flight; and in a moment there flashed before him all the evidences of Mr. Brownlow’s favor. Would he refuse him this supreme gift and blessing? Why had he brought him here if he would refuse him? Thus Powys broke down again, and finally. He poured out his heart, giving up all attempt at self-control when the tide had set in. He told how he had been keeping out of the way—the way of temptation. He described to her how he had been trying to command himself. He told her the ground she trod on was fairy-land: the air she breathed musical and celestial; the place she lived in, paradise; that he hoped nothing, asked for nothing, but only to be allowed to tell her that she was—not an angel—for he was too much in earnest to think of hackneyed expressions—but the only creature in the world for whom he had either eyes or thoughts. All this poured upon Sara as she walked softly, with downcast eyes, along the grassy path. It poured upon her, a perfect flood of adulation, sweet flattery, folly, and delirium—insane and yet quite true. And she listened, and had not a word to say. Indeed he did not ask for a word; he made her no petition; he emptied out his heart before her like a libation poured to the gods; and then suddenly became silent, tremulous, and hoarse as his passion worked itself out.

It was all so sudden, and the passion was so real, that they were both rapt by it, and went on in the silence after he had ceased, without knowing, until the impetus and rush of the outburst had in a measure worn out. Then Sara woke up. She had been quite quiet, pale, half frightened, wholly entranced. When she woke up she grew scarlet with sudden blushes; and they both raised their eyes at the same moment and found that, unawares, they had come in sight of the house. Powys fell back at the sight with a pang of dismay and consternation; but it gave Sara courage. They were no longer entirely alone, and she regained her self-command.

“Mr. Powys,” she said, tremulously, “I don’t know what to say to you. I am not so good as that. I—I don’t know what to say. You have not asked me any thing. I—I have no answer to give.”

“It is because I want to ask every thing,” said poor Powys; “but I know—I know you can have nothing to say.”

“Not now,” said Sara, under her breath; and then she held out her hand suddenly, perhaps only for her basket. There was nobody at the windows, heaven be praised, as she afterward said to herself, but not until she had rushed up to her own room and pulled off that glove, and looked at it with scarlet cheeks, and put it stealthily away. No, thank heaven! even Angelique was at the other side of the house at a window which looked out upon the innocent shrubberies. Only the placid, silent house, blank and vacant, had been the witness. Was it a seal of any thing, a pledge of any thing, or only a vague touch, for which she was not responsible, that had fallen upon Sara’s glove?

Mr. Brownlow had gone away, his heart positively aching with expectation and anxiety. He did not know what might happen while he was gone. It might be more than life or death to him, as much more as honor or dishonor go beyond mere life and death; and yet he could not stay and watch. He had to nerve himself to that last heroism of letting every thing take its chance, and going on with his work whatever happened. He went to the office with his mind racked by this anxiety, and got through his work all the same, nobody being the wiser. As he returned, a little incident for the moment diverted him from his own thoughts. This was the sight of the carrier’s cart standing at Mrs. Swayne’s door, and Mrs. Swayne’s lodger in the act of mounting into it with the assistance of a chair. Mr. Brownlow, as he passed in the dog-cart, could not but notice this. He could not but observe how pale and ill she looked. He was interested in them partly with that displeased and repellent interest excited by Jack’s “entanglement,” partly because of Pamela’s face, which reminded him of something, and partly—he could not tell why. Mrs. Preston stumbled a little as she mounted up, and Mr. Brownlow, who was waiting for old Betty to open the gate, sprang down from the dog-cart, being still almost as active as ever, and went across the road to assist. He took off his hat to her with the courtesy which all his family possessed, and asked if she was going away. “You do not look well enough to be setting out on a journey,” he said, a little moved by the sight of the pale old woman mounting into that uneasy conveyance. “I hope you are not going alone.” This he said, although he could see she was going alone, and that poor little Pamela’s eyes were big with complaint and reproach and trouble. Somehow he felt as if he should like to take the little creature home with him, and pet and cherish her, though, of course, as the cause of Jack’s entanglement, nothing should have made him notice her at all.

But Mrs. Preston looked at him fiercely with her kindled eyes, and rejected his aid. “Thank you,” she said abruptly, “I don’t want any help—thank you. I am quite able to travel, and I prefer to be alone.”

“In that case, there is nothing farther to say,” said Mr. Brownlow, politely; and then his heart melted because of little Pamela, and he added, almost in spite of himself, “I hope you are not going away.”

“Only to come back,” said Mrs. Preston, significantly—“only to come back; and, Mr. Brownlow, I am glad to have a chance of telling you that we shall meet again.”

“It will give me much pleasure, I am sure,” he said, taking off his hat, but he stared, as Pamela perceived. Meet again! what had he to do with the woman? He was surprised, and yet he could have laughed. As if he should care for meeting her! And then he went away, followed by her fierce look, and walked up the avenue, dismissing the dog-cart. The act might make him a little late for dinner, but on the whole he was glad to be late. At least there could be no confidences made to him before he had been refreshed with food and wine, and he wanted all the strength that could be procured in that or any other way. Thus it was that he had not time to go into the library before dinner, but went up stairs at once and dressed, and down stairs at once into the drawing-room, looking at Sara and at his young guest with an eye whose keenness baffled itself. There was something new in their faces, but he could not tell what it was; he saw a certain gleam of something that had passed, but it was not distinct enough to explain itself, not having been, as will be perceived, distinct at all, at least on the more important side. He kept looking at them, but their faces conveyed no real information, and he could not take his child aside and ask her what it was, as her mother might have done. Accordingly after dinner, instead of going up to the drawing-room and perplexing himself still farther with anxious looks, he went into the library. The suspense had to be borne whether he liked it or not, and he was not a man to make any grievance about it. The smile which he had been wearing in deference to the usages of society faded from his face when he entered that sheltering place. His countenance fell into the haggard lines which Powys had not observed in the morning. A superficial spectator would have supposed that now he was alone his distresses had come back to him; but on the contrary his worn and weary look was not an evidence of increased pain—it was a sign of ease and rest. There he did not need to conceal the anxiety which was racking him. In this state of mind, letting himself go, as it were, taking off the restraints which had been binding him, he went into the library, and found Powys’s letter, and the bundle of papers that were put up with it, placed carefully on his table before his chair.

The sight gave him a shock which, being all alone and at his ease, he did not attempt to conceal. The light seemed to go out of his eyes, his lip drooped a little, a horrible gleam of suffering went over his face: now no doubt the moment had come. He even hesitated and went away to the other extremity of the room, and turned his back upon the evidence which was to seal his fate. Then it occurred to him how simple-minded the young fellow was—to thrust his evidences thus, as it were, into the hands of the man whose interest it was to destroy them!—and a certain softening came over him, a thrill of kindness, almost of positive affection for the youth who was going to ruin him. Poor fellow!—he would be sorry—and then Sara would still have it, and he would be good to her. Mr. Brownlow’s mind was in this incoherent state when he came back to the table, and, steeling himself for the effort, sat down before the fated papers. He undid the ribbon with trembling hands. Powys’s letter was written on his own paper, with “Brownlows” on it in fantastic Gothic letters, according to Sara’s will and pleasure; and a thrill of anger shot over him as he perceived this. Strange that as he approached the very climax of his fate he should be able to be moved by such troubles! Then Mr. Brownlow opened the letter. It was very short, as has been said, and this was the communication which had cost the young man so much toil:

Mr. Brownlow was touched by the letter. He was touched by its earnestness, and he was also touched by its simplicity. He was in so strange a mood that it brought even the moisture to his eye. “To have every thing I possess in the world in his power, and yet to write like this,” he said to himself, and drew a long sigh, which was as much relief as apprehension. “She will still have it all, and he deserves to have her,” Mr. Brownlow thought to himself; and opened up the yellow papers with a strange mixture of pain and satisfaction which even he could not understand.

He was a long time over them. They were letters chiefly, and they took a great many things for granted of which Mr. Brownlow was completely ignorant, and referred to many events altogether unknown to him. He was first puzzled, then almost disappointed, then angry. It seemed like trifling with him. These could not be the papers Powys meant to enclose. There were letters from some distressed mother to a son who had made a foolish marriage, and there were letters from the son, pleading that love might still be left to him, if not any thing else, and that no evil impression might be formed of his Mary. Who was his Mary? Who was the writer? What had he to do with Brownlows and Sara and Phoebe Thomson’s fortune? For a long time Mr. Brownlow toiled on, hoping to come to something which bore upon his own case. The foregone conclusion was so strong in his mind, that he grew angry as he proceeded, and found his search in vain. Powys was trifling with him, putting him off—thrusting this utterly unimportant correspondence into his hands, instead of confiding, as he had thought, his true proofs to him. This distrust, as Mr. Brownlow imagined it, irritated him in the most-curious way. Ask his advice, and not intrust him with the true documents that proved the case! Play with his good sense, and doubt his integrity! It wounded him with a certain keen professional sting. He had worked himself up to the point of defrauding the just heir; but to suspect that the papers would not be safe in his hands was a suggestion that cut him to the heart. He was very angry, and he had so far forgotten the progress of time that, when he rang sharply to summon some one, the bell rang through all the hushed echoes of the house, and a servant—half asleep, and considerably frightened—came gaping, after a long interval, to the library door.

“Where is Mr. Powys?” said Mr. Brownlow. “If he is in the drawing-room give him my compliments, and ask him to be so good as to step down here for a few minutes to me.”

“Mr. Powys, sir?” said the man—“the gentleman as came yesterday, sir? The drawing-room is all shut up, sir, long ago. The ladies is gone to bed, but some of the gentlemen is in the smoking-room, and I can see if he’s there.”

“Gone to bed!” said Mr. Brownlow; “why were they in such a hurry?” and then he looked at his watch and found, to his great surprise, that it was past midnight. A vague wonder struck him once again whether his mind could be getting impaired. The suggestion was like a passing stab in the dark dealt him by an unseen enemy. He kept staring at the astonished servant, and then he continued sharply, “Go and see if he is in the smoking-room, or if not, in his own room. Ask him to come to me.”

Powys had gone up stairs late, and was sitting thinking, unable to rest. He had been near her the whole evening, and though they had not exchanged many words, there had been a certain sense between them that they were not as the others were. Once or twice their eyes had met, and fallen beneath each other’s glance. It was nothing, and yet it was sweeter than any thing certain and definite. And now he sat and thought. The night had crept on, and had become chilly and ghostly, and his mind was in a state of strange excitement. What was to come of it all? What could come of it? When the servant came to his door at that late hour, the young man started with a thrill of apprehension, and followed him down stairs almost trembling, feeling his heart sink within him; for so late and so peremptory a summons seemed an omen of evil. Mr. Brownlow had collected himself before Powys came into the room, and received him with an apology. “I am sorry to disturb you so late. I was not aware it was so late; but I want to understand this—” he said; and then he waited till the servant had left the room, and pointed to a chair on the other side of the table. “Sit down,” he said, “and tell me what this means.”

“What it means?” said Powys taken by surprise.

“Yes, sir, what it means,” said Mr. Brownlow, hoarsely. “I may guess what your case is; but you must know that these are not the papers to support it. Who is the writer of these letters? who is the Mary he talks of? and what has it all to do with you?”

“It has every thing to do with me,” said Powys. “The letters were written by my father—the Mary he speaks of is my mother—”

“Your mother?” said Mr. Brownlow, with a sharp exclamation, which sounded like an oath to the young man’s astonished ears; and then he thrust the papers away with trembling hands, and folded his arms on the table, and looked intently into Powys’s face. “What was your mother’s name?”

“My mother’s name was Mary Christian,” said Powys, wondering; “but the point is—Good heavens! what is the matter? what do you mean?”

His surprise was reasonable enough. Mr. Brownlow had sprung to his feet; he had dashed his two clenched hands through the air, and said, “Impostor!” through his teeth. That was the word—there could be no mistake about it—“Impostor!” upon which Powys too jumped up, and faced him with an expression wavering between resentment and surprise, repeating more loudly in his consternation, “What do you mean?”

But the young man could only stand and look on with increasing wonder when he saw Mr. Brownlow sink into his chair, and bury his face in his hands, and tremble like a palsied old man. Something like a sob even came from his breast. The relief was so amazing, so unlooked for, that at the first touch it was pain. But Powys, standing by, knew nothing of all this. He stood, not knowing whether to be offended, hesitating, looking for some explanation; and no doubt the time seemed longer to him than it really was. When Mr. Brownlow raised his head his face was perfectly colorless, like the face of a man who had passed through some dreadful experiment. He waved his hand to his young companion, and it was a minute before he could speak.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “It is all a mistake—an entire mistake, on my part. I did not know what I was saying. It was a sudden pain. But never mind, I am better. What did you mean me to learn from these papers?” he added, after a pause, with a forced smile.

Then Powys knew his fate. There was a change which could not be described. In an instant, tone, look, manner, every thing was altered. It was his master who said these last words to him; his employer, very kind and just, but unapproachable as a king. One moment before, and Mr. Brownlow had been in his power, he did not know how or why; and in an instant, still without his knowing wherefore, his power had totally departed. Powys saw this in all the darkness of utter ignorance. His consternation was profound and his confusion. In a moment his own presumption, his own hopelessness, the misery of loss and disappointment, overwhelmed him, and yet not a word bearing upon the real matter at issue had been said.

“They are my father’s papers,” said poor Powys. “I thought—that is, I supposed—I hoped there might be some indication in them—I am sorry if I have troubled you unnecessarily. He belonged to a good family, and I imagined I might perhaps have reclaimed—but it doesn’t matter. If that is what you think—”

“Oh yes, I see,” said Mr. Brownlow; “you can leave them, and perhaps another time—But in the mean time, if you feel inclined, my groom can drive you down to-morrow morning. I am not sure that I shall be going myself; and I will not detain you any longer to-night.”

“Very well, sir,” said Powys. He stood for a moment looking for something more—for some possible softening; but not one word of kindness came except an abrupt good-night. Good-night—yes, good-night to every thing—hope, love, happiness, fortune. Farewell to them all; and Sara, she who had almost seemed to belong to him. It seemed to Powys as if he was walking on his own heart as he left the room, trampling on it, stamping it down, crying fool, fool! Poor fellow, no doubt he had been a fool; but it was a hard awakening, and the fault, after all, was not his own.

Mr. Brownlow, however, was too much occupied with his own deliverance to think of Powys. He said that new name over to himself again and again, to realize what had happened. Mary Christian—Mary Christian—surely he had heard it before; but so long as it was not Phoebe Thomson, what did it matter who was his mother? Not Phoebe Thomson. She was dead perhaps—dead, and in a day or two more it would not matter. Two days, that was all—for it was now October. She might turn up a week hence if she would; but now he was free—free, quite free; without any wrong-doing or harm to any body; Brownlows and every thing else his own. Could it be true? Mary Christian—that was the name. And she came from the Isle of Man. But there was plenty of time to inquire into all that. The thing in the mean time was that he was released. When he got up and roused himself he found he could scarcely stand. He had been steady enough during all the time of his trial; but the sudden relief took all his forces from him. He shook from head to foot, and had to hold by the tables and chairs as he went out. And he left the lamp burning in forlorn dreariness on the library-table. The exertion of walking up stairs was almost too much for him. He had no attention to give to the common things surrounding him. All his powers, all his senses were absorbed in the one sensation of being free. Only once as he went up stairs did his ordinary faculties return to him, as it were, for a moment. It was when he was passing the great window in the staircase, and glancing out saw the white moonlight glimmering over all the park, and felt the cold of the night. Then it occurred to him to wonder if the pale old woman whom he had seen getting into the carrier’s cart could be traveling through this cold night. Poor old soul! He could not but think for the moment how chilly and frozen it would be. And then he bethought himself that he was safe, might go where he liked, do what he liked, had nobody menacing him, no enemy looking on to watch an opportunity—and no harm done! Thus Mr. Brownlow paused in the weakness of deliverance, and his heart melted within him. He made not vows to the saints of new churches or big tapers, but secret, tender resolutions in his heart. For this awful danger escaped, how should he show his gratitude to God? He was himself delivered, and goodness seemed to come back to him, his natural impulse. He had been saved from doing wrong, and without doing wrong all he wanted had been secured to him. What reason had not he to be good to every body; to praise God by serving his neighbor? This was the offering of thanksgiving he proposed to render. He did not at the moment think of young Powys sitting at his window looking out on the same moonlight, very dumb and motionless and heart-stricken, thinking life henceforward a dreary desert. No harm was done, and Mr. Brownlow was glad. But it did not occur to him to offer any healing in Powys’s case. If there was to be a victim at all, it was best that he should be the victim. Had he not brought it on himself?