While the baronet was penning these records of vicious schemes—­dire waste of wealth and time—­irrevocable time!—­Marston paced his study in a very different frame of mind.  There were a gloom and disorder in the room accordant with those of his own mind.  Shelves of ancient tomes, darkened by time, and upon which the dust of years lay sleeping—­dark oaken cabinets, filled with piles of deeds and papers, among which the nimble spiders were crawling—­and, from the dusky walls, several stark, pale ancestors, looking down coldly from their tarnished frames.  An hour, and another hour passed—­and still Marston paced this melancholy chamber, a prey to his own fell passions and dark thoughts.  He was not a superstitious man, but, in the visions which haunted him, perhaps, was something which made him unusually excitable—­for, he experienced a chill of absolute horror, as, standing at the farther end of the room, with his face turned towards the entrance, he beheld the door noiselessly and slowly pushed open, by a pale, thin hand, and a figure dressed in a loose white robe, glide softly in.  He stood for some seconds gazing upon this apparition, as it moved hesitatingly towards him from the dusky extremity of the large apartment, before he perceived that the form was that of Mrs. Marston.

“Hey, ha!—­Mrs. Marston—­what on earth has called you hither?” he asked, sternly.  “You ought to have been at rest an hour ago; get to your chamber, and leave me, I have business to attend to.”

“Now, dear Richard, you must forgive me,” she said, drawing near, and looking up into his haggard face with a sweet and touching look of timidity and love; “I could not rest until I saw you again; your looks have been all this night so unlike yourself; so strange and terrible, that I am afraid some great misfortune threatens you, which you fear to tell me of.”

“My looks!  Why, curse it, must I give an account of my looks?” replied Marston, at once disconcerted and wrathful.  “Misfortune!  What misfortune can befall us more?  No, there is nothing, nothing, I say, but your own foolish fancy; go to your room—­go to sleep—­my looks, indeed; pshaw!”

“I came to tell you, dear Richard, that I will do, in all respects, just as you desire.  If you continue to wish it, I will part with poor mademoiselle; though, indeed, Richard, I shall miss her more than you can imagine; and all your suspicions have wronged her deeply,” said Mrs. Marston.  Her husband darted a sudden flashing glance of suspicious scrutiny upon her face; but its expression was frank, earnest, noble.  He was disarmed; he hung his head gloomily upon his breast, and was silent for a time.  She came nearer, and laid her hand upon his arm.  He looked darkly into her upturned eyes, and a feeling which had not touched his heart for many a day—­an emotion of pity, transient, indeed, but vivid, revisited him.  He took her hand in his, and said, in gentler terms than she had heard him use for a long time—­