The blow so long expected, yet so eagerly and hopefully at with , falls at last (all too soon) upon the Towers. Perhaps it is not the very final blow that when it comes must shatter to atoms all the old home-ties, and the tender links that youth has forged, but it is certainly a cruel , that touches the heart , making them quiver. The first thin edge of the wedge has been inserted: the sword trembles to its fall: c'est le commencement de la .  
It is the morning after Lady Chetwoode's ball. Every one has got down to breakfast. Every one is in excellent spirits, in spite of the fact that the rain is down the window-panes in , and that the post is late.
 
As a rule it always is late, except when it is preternaturally early; sometimes it comes at half-past ten, sometimes with the hot water. There is a blessed about its that keeps every one on the tiptoe of expectation, and probably benefits circulation.
 
The postman himself is an institution in the village, being of an unknown age, in fact, the real and original oldest inhabitant, and still with no signs of coming dissolution about him, carrying out Dicken's theory that a dead post-boy or a dead donkey is a thing yet to be seen. He is a hoary-headed old person, and , with only one leg worth speaking about, and an ear . This last is merely for show, as once old Jacob is set fairly talking, no human power could get in a word from any one else.
 
"I am always so glad when the post doesn't arrive in time for breakfast," Doatie is saying gayly. "Once those papers come, every one gets stupid and , and thinks it a positive injury to have to say even 'yes' or 'no' to a civil question. Now see how we have been this morning, because that dear Jacob is late again. Ah! I too soon," as the door opens and a servant enters with a most pile of letters and papers.
 
"Late again, Jermyn," says Sir Nicholas, lazily.
 
"Yes, Sir Nicholas,—just an hour and a half. He desired me to say he had had another '' in his rheumatic knee this morning, so hoped you would excuse him."
 
"Poor old soul!" says Sir Nicholas.
 
"Jolly old bore!" says Captain Rodney, though not unkindly.
 
"Don't throw me over that blue envelope, Nick," says Nolly: "I don't seem to care about it. I know it, I think it seems familiar. You may have it, with my love. Mrs. Geoffrey, be so good as to tear it in two."
 
is laughing over a letter written by one of the fellows in India; all are deep in their own correspondence.
 
Sir Nicholas, having gone through two of his letters, opens a third, and begins to it rather carelessly. But hardly has he gone half-way down the first page when his face changes; involuntarily his fingers over the luckless letter, crimping it out of all shape. By a effort he suppresses an . It is all over in a moment. Then he raises his head, and the color comes back to his lips. He smiles faintly, and, saying something about having many things to do this morning, and that therefore he hopes they will forgive his running away from them in such a hurry he rises and walks slowly from the room.
 
Nobody has noticed that anything is wrong. Only Doatie turns very pale, and glances at Geoffrey, who answers her frightened look with a one of his own.
 
Then, as breakfast was virtually over before the letters came, they all rise, and themselves as fancy . But Geoffrey goes alone to where he knows he shall find Nicholas in his own .
 
An hour later, coming out of it again, feeling and anxious, he finds Dorothy walking restlessly up and down the corridor outside, as though listening for some sound she pines to hear. Her pretty face, usually so bright and debonnaire, is pale and sad. Her lips are trembling.
 
"May I not see Nicholas, if only for a moment?" she says, , gazing with at Geoffrey. At which Nicholas, hearing from within the voice that rings its changes on his heart from morn till eve, calls aloud to her,—
 
"Come in, Dorothy. I want to speak to you."
 
So she goes in, and Geoffrey, closing the door behind her, leaves them together.
 
She would have gone to him then, and tried to console him in her own pretty fashion, but he motions her to stay where she is.
 
"Do not come any nearer," he says, hastily, "I can tell it all to you better, more easily, when I cannot see you."
 
So Doatie, nervous and , and with unshed tears in her eyes, stands where he tells her, with her hand resting on the back of an arm-chair, while he, going over to the window, turns his face from hers. Yet even now he seems to find a difficulty in beginning. There is a long pause; and then——
 
"They—they have found that fellow,—old Elspeth's nephew," he says in a husky tone.
 
"Where?" asks Doatie, eagerly.
 
"In Sydney. In Paul Rodney's employ. In his very house."
 
"Ah!" says Doatie, clasping her hands. "And——"
 
"He says he knows nothing about any will."
 
Another pause, longer than the last.
 
"He denies all knowledge of it. I suppose he has been bought up by the other side. And now what for us to do? That was our last chance, and a splendid one, as there are many reasons for believing that old Elspeth either burned or hid the will up by my grandfather on the night of his death; but it has failed us. Yet I cannot but think this man must know something of it. How did he discover Paul Rodney's home? It has been proved, that old Elspeth was always in communication with my uncle up to the hour of her death; she must have sent Warden to Australia then, probably with this very will she had been so carefully hiding for years. If so, it is beyond all doubt burned or otherwise destroyed by this time. Parkins writes to me in despair."
 
"This is dreadful!" says Doatie. "But"—brightening—"surely it is not so bad as death or disgrace, is it?"
 
"It means death to me," replies he, in a low tone. "It means that I shall lose you."
 
"Nicholas," cries she, a little sharply, "what is it you would say?"
 
", hear me," exclaims he, turning for the first time to comfort her; and, as he does, she notices the that the last hour of anxiety and trouble have upon his face. He is looking thin and haggard, and rather tired. All her heart goes out to him, and it is with difficulty she restrains her desire to run to him and encircle him with her soft arms. But something in his expression prevents her.
 
"Hear me," he says, : "if I am worsted in this fight—and I see no ray of hope anywhere—I am a ruined man. I shall then have only five hundred a year that I can call my own. No home; no title. And such an income as that, to people bred as you and I have been, means simply . All must be at an end between us, Dorothy. We must try to forget that we have ever been more than ordinary friends."
 
This has hardly the effect upon Dorothy that might be desired. She still stands firm, unshaken by the storm that has just swept over her (frail child though she is), and, except for a slight touch of indignation that is fast growing within her eyes, appears unmoved.
 
"You may try just as hard as ever you like," she says, with dignity: "I sha'n't!"
 
"So you think now; but by and by you will find the pressure too great, and you will go with the tide. If I were to work for years and years, I could scarcely at the end achieve a position fit to offer you. And I am thirty-two, remember,—not a boy beginning life, with all the world and time before him,—and you are only twenty. By what right should I sacrifice your youth, your ? Some other man, some one more fortunate, may perhaps——"
 
Here he breaks down , considering the amount of sternness he had summoned to his aid when commencing, and, walking to the mantelpiece, lays his arm on it, and his head upon his arms.
 
"You insult me," says Dorothy, growing even whiter than she was before, "when you speak to me of—of——"
 
Then she, too, breaks down, and, going to him, deliberately lifts one of his arms and lays it round her neck; after which she places both hers gently round his, and so, having comfortably arranged herself, proceeds to indulge in a burst of tears. This is, without exception, the very wisest course she could have taken, as it frightens the life out of Nicholas, and brings him to a more proper frame of mind in no time.
 
"Oh, Dorothy, don't do that! Don't, my dearest, my pet!" he . "I won't say another word, not one, if you will only stop."
 
"You have said too much already, and there sha'n't be an end of it, as you declared just now," protest............