Chaeles had really no idea where he was going. Although he Ivnew that Hornby had been playing with Lord Welter, yet he thought, from what Hornby had said, that he would not bring him into collision with him; and indeed he did not — only taking Charles with him as a reserve in case of accidents, for he thoroughly distrusted his lordship.

At half-past six in the evening Hornby rode slowly away, followed by Charles. He had told Charles that he should dine in St. John’s Wood at seven, and should ride there, and Charles was to wait with the horses. But it was nearly seven, and yet Hornby loitered, and seemed undetermined. It was a wild, gusty evening, threatening rain. There were very few people abroad, and those who were rode or walked rapidly. And yet Hornby dawdled irresolute, as though his determination were hardly strong enough yet.

At first he rode quite away from his destination, but by degrees his horse’s head got changed into the right direction; then he made another detour, but a shorter one; at last he put spurs to his horse, and rode resolutely up the short carriage-drive before the door, and, giving the reins to Charles, walked firmly in.

Charles put up the horses, and went into the servants’ hall, or the room which answered that end in the rather small house of Lord Welter. No one was there. All the servants were busy with the dinner, and Charles was left unnoticed.

By and by a page, noticing a strange servant in passing the door, brought him some beer, and a volume of the Newgate Calendar. This young gentleman called his attention to a print of a lady cutting up the body of her husband with a chopper, assisted by a young Jew, who was depicted “walking off with a leg,” like one of the Fans (the use of which seems to be, to cool the warm imagination of other travellers into proper limits), while the woman was preparing for another effort. After having recommended Charles to read the letterpress thereof, as he would find it tolerably spicy, he departed, and left him alone.

The dinner was got over in time; and after a time there was silence in the house — a silence so great that Charles rose and left the room. He soon found his way to another; but all was dark and silent, though it was not more than half-past nine.

He stood in the dark passage, wondering where to go, and determined to turn back to the room from which he had come. There was a light there, at all events.

There was a light, and the Newgate Calendar. The wild wind, that had eddied and whirled the dust at the street corners, and swept across the park all day, had gone down, and the rain had come on. He could hear it, drip, drip, outside; it was very melancholy. Confound the Newgate Calendar!

He was in a very queer house, he knew. What did Hornby mean by asking him the night before whether or no he could fight, and whether he would stick to him? Drip, drip; otherwise a dead silence. Charles’s heart began to beat a little faster.

Where were all the servants? He had heard plenty of them half an hour ago. He had heard a French cook swearing at English kitchen-girls, and had heard plenty of other voices; and now — the silence of the grave. Or of Christie and Manson’s on Saturday evening; or of the Southern Indian Ocean in a calm at midnight; or of anything else you like; similes are cheap.

He remembered now that Hornby had said, “Come and lie in the hall as if asleep; no one will notice you.” He determined to do so. But where was it? His candle was flickering in its socket, and, as he tried to move it, it went out.

He could scarcely keep from muttering an oath, but he did. His situation was very uncomfortable. He did not know in what house he was — only that he was in a quarter of the town in which there were not a few uncommonly queer houses. He determined to grope his way to the light.

He felt his way out of the room and along a passage. The darkness was intense, and the silence perfect

Suddenly a dull red liglit gleamed iu his eyes, and made him start. It was the liglit of the kitchen fire. A cricket would have been company, but there was none.

He continued to advance cautiously. Soon a ghosth’ square of very dim grey light on his left showed him where was a long narrow window. It was barred with iron bars. He was just thinking of this, and how very queer it was, when he uttered a loud oath, and came crashing down. He had fallen upstairs.

He had made noise enough to waken the seven sleepers; but those gentlemen did not seem to be in the neighbourhood, or, at all events, if awakened, gave no sign of it. Dead silence. He sat on the bottom stair and rubbed his shins, and, in spite of a strong suspicion that he had got into a scrape, laughed to himself at the absurdity of his position.

“Would it be worth while, I wonder,” he said to himself, “to go back to the kitchen and get the poker? I’d better not, I suppose. It would be so deuced awkward to be caught in the dark with a poker in your hand. Being on the premises for the purpose of committing a felony — that is what they would say; and then they would be sure to say that you were the companion of thieves, and had been convicted before. No. Under this staircase, in the nature of things, is the housemaid’s cupboard. What should I find there as a weapon of defence? A dust-pan. A great deal might be done with a dust-pan, mind you, at close quarters. How would it do to arrange all her paraphernalia on the stairs, and by fire, so that mine enemies, rushing forth, might stumble and fall, and be taken unawares? But that would be acting on the offensive, and I have no safe grounds for pitching into anyone yet.”

Though Charles tried to comfort himself by talking nonsense, he was very uncomfortable. Staying where he was, was intolerable; and he hardly dared [ascend into the upper regions imbidden. Besides, he had fully persuaded himself that a disturbance was imminent, and, though a brave man, did not like to precipitate it. He had mistaken the character of the house he was in. At last, taking heart, he turned and felt his way upstairs. He came before a door through the keyhole of which the light streamed strongly; he was deliberating whether to open it or not, when a shadow crossed it, though he heard no noise, but a minute after the distant sound of a closing door. He could stand it no longer. He opened the door, and advanced into a blaze of light.

He entered a beautiful flagged hall, frescoed and gilded. There were vases of flowers round the walls, and strips of Indian matting on the pavement. It was Ht by a single chandelier, which was reflected in four great pier-glasses reaching to the ground, in which Charles’s top-boots and brown face were reduplicated most startingly. The tout ensemble was very beautiful; but what struck Charles, was the bad taste of having an entrance-hall decorated like a drawingroom, “That is just the sort of thing they do in these places,” he thought.

There were only two hats on the entrance table; one of which he was rejoiced to recognise as that of his most respected master. “May the deuce take his silly noddle for bringing me to such a place!” thought Charles.

This was evidently the front hall spoken of by Hornby; and he remembered his advice to pretend to go to sleep. So he lay down on three hall-chairs, and put his hat over his eyes.

Hall-chairs are hard; and, although Charles had just been laughing at the proprietor of the house for being so lavish in his decorations, he now wished that he had carried out his system a little further, and had cushions to his chairs. But no; the chairs were de rigueur, with crests on the backs of them. Charles did not notice whose.

If a man pretends to go to sleep, and, like the Marchioness with her orangepeel and water, “makes believe very much,” he may sometimes succeed in going to sleep in good earnest. Charles imitated the thing so well, that in five ixdnutes he was as fast off as a top.

Till a night or two before this, Charles had never dreamt of Ravenshoe since he had left it. When the first sharp sting of his trouble was in his soul, his mind had refused to go back farther than to the events of a day or so before. He had dreamt long silly dreams of his master, or his fellow-servants, or his horses, but always, all through the night, with a dread on him of waking in the dark. But, as his mind began to settle and his pain got dulled, he began to dream about Ravenshoe, and Oxford, and Shrewsbury again; and he no longer dreaded the waking as he did, for the reality of his life was no longer hideous to him. With the fatal “plasticity ” of his nature, he had lowered himself, body and soul, to the level of it.

But tonight, as he slept on these chairs, he dreamt of Ravenshoe, and of Cuthbert, and of Ellen. And he woke, and she was standing within ten feet of him, under the chandelier.

He was awake in an instant, but he lay as still as a mouse, staring at her. She had not noticed him, but was standing in profound thought. Found, and so soon! His sister! How lovely she was, standing, dressed in light pearl grey, like some beautiful ghost, with her speaking eyes fixed on nothing. She moved now, but so lightly that her footfall was barely heard upon the matting. Then she turned and noticed him. She did not seem surprised at seeing a groom stret............