Mr. Bell was stunned by the shock; and only recovered when the

time came for being angry at every suggestion of his man's.

'A coroner's inquest? Pooh. You don't think I poisoned him! Dr.

Forbes says it is just the natural end of a heart complaint. Poor

old Hale! You wore out that tender heart of yours before its

time. Poor old friend! how he talked of his----Wallis, pack up a

carpet-bag for me in five minutes. Here have I been talking. Pack

it up, I say. I must go to Milton by the next train.' The bag was packed, the cab ordered, the railway reached, in

twenty minutes from the moment of this decision. The London train

whizzed by, drew back some yards, and in Mr. Bell was hurried by

the impatient guard. He threw himself back in his seat, to try,

with closed eyes, to understand how one in life yesterday could

be dead to-day; and shortly tears stole out between his grizzled

eye-lashes, at the feeling of which he opened his keen eyes, and

looked as severely cheerful as his set determination could make

him. He was not going to blubber before a set of strangers. Not

he!

There was no set of strangers, only one sitting far from him on

the same side. By and bye Mr. Bell peered at him, to discover

what manner of man it was that might have been observing his

emotion; and behind the great sheet of the outspread 'Times,' he

recognised Mr. Thornton.

'Why, Thornton! is that you?' said he, removing hastily to a

closer proximity. He shook Mr. Thornton vehemently by the hand,

until the gripe ended in a sudden relaxation, for the hand was

wanted to wipe away tears. He had last seen Mr. Thornton in his

friend Hale's company.

'I'm going to Milton, bound on a melancholy errand. Going to

break to Hale's daughter the news of his sudden death!' 'Death! Mr. Hale dead!' 'Ay; I keep saying it to myself, "Hale is dead!" but it doesn't

make it any the more real. Hale is dead for all that. He went to

bed well, to all appearance, last night, and was quite cold this

morning when my servant went to call him.' 'Where? I don't understand!' 'At Oxford. He came to stay with me; hadn't been in Oxford this

seventeen years--and this is the end of it.' Not one word was spoken for above a quarter of an hour. Then Mr.

Thornton said: 'And she!' and stopped full short.

'Margaret you mean. Yes! I am going to tell her. Poor fellow! how

full his thoughts were of her all last night! Good God! Last

night only. And how immeasurably distant he is now! But I take

Margaret as my child for his sake. I said last night I would take

her for her own sake. Well, I take her for both.' Mr. Thornton made one or two fruitless attempts to speak, before

he could get out the words: 'What will become of her!' 'I rather fancy there will be two people waiting for her: myself

for one. I would take a live dragon into my house to live, if, by

hiring such a chaperon, and setting up an establishment of my

own, I could make my old age happy with having Margaret for a

daughter. But there are those Lennoxes!' 'Who are they?' asked Mr. Thornton with trembling interest.




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