“Yes; I expect him in a few days,” replied he, with a sudden gloom.

“You have not seen him, Sir Wynston?” asked the clergyman.

“I have that pleasure yet to come,” said the baronet.

“A pleasure it is, I do assure you,” said Doctor Danvers, heartily.  “He is a handsome lad, with the heart of a hero—­a fine, frank, generous lad, and as merry as a lark.”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Marston; “he is well enough, and has done pretty well at Cambridge.  Doctor Danvers, take some wine.”

It was strange, but yet mournfully true, that the praises which the good Doctor Danvers thus bestowed upon his son were bitter to the soul of the unhappy Marston.  They jarred upon his ear, and stung his heart; for his conscience converted them into so many latent insults and humiliations to himself.

“Your wine is very good, Marston.  I think your clarets are many degrees better than any I can get,” said Sir Wynston, sipping a glass of his favorite wine.  “You country gentlemen are sad selfish dogs; and, with all your grumbling, manage to collect the best of whatever is worth having about you.”

“We sometimes succeed in collecting a pleasant party,” retorted Marston, with ironical courtesy, “though we do not always command the means of entertaining them quite as we would wish.”

It was the habit of Doctor Danvers, without respect of persons or places, to propose, before taking his departure from whatever domestic party he chanced to be thrown among for the evening, to read some verses from that holy Book, on which his own hopes and peace were founded, and to offer up a prayer for all to the throne of grace.  Marston, although he usually absented himself from such exercises, did not otherwise discourage them; but upon the present occasion, starting from his gloomy reverie, he himself was the first to remind the clergyman of his customary observance.  Evil thoughts loomed upon the mind of Marston, like measureless black mists upon a cold, smooth sea.  They rested, grew, and darkened there; and no heaven-sent breath came silently to steal them away.  Under this dread shadow his mind lay waiting, like the deep, before the Spirit of God moved upon its waters, passive and awful.  Why for the first time now did religion interest him?  The unseen, intangible, was even now at work within him.  A dreadful power shook his very heart and soul.  There was some strange, ghastly wrestling going on in his own immortal spirit, a struggle that made him faint, which he had no power to determine.  He looked upon the holy influence of the good man’s prayer—­a prayer in which he could not join—­with a dull, superstitious hope that the words, inviting better influence, though uttered by another, and with other objects, would, like a spell, chase away the foul fiend that was busy with his soul.  Marston sate, looking into the fire, with a countenance of stern gloom, upon which the wayward lights of the flickering hearth sported fitfully; while at a distant table Doctor Danvers sate down, and, taking his well-worn Bible from his pocket, turned over its leaves, and began, in gentle but impressive tones, to read.