As she spoke, the color fled from her face, and her tones became so strange and resolute, that Marston turned short upon his heel, and stopped before her.  She looked in his face; he frowned, but lowered his eyes.  She drew nearer, laid her hand upon his shoulder, and whispered for a few moments in his ear.  He raised his face suddenly:  its features were sharp and fixed; its hue was changed; it was livid and moveless, like a face cut in gray stone.  He staggered back a little and a little more, and then a little more, and fell backward.  Fortunately, the chair in which he had been sitting received him, and he lay there insensible as a corpse.  When at last his eyes opened, there was no gleam of triumph, no shade of anger, nothing perceptible of guilt or menace, in the young woman’s countenance.  The flush had returned to her cheeks; her dimpled chin had sunk upon her full white throat; sorrow, shame, and pride seemed struggling in her handsome face, and she stood before him like a beautiful penitent, who has just made a strange and humbling shrift to her father confessor.

Next day, Marston was mounting his horse for a solitary ride through his park, when Doctor Danvers rode abruptly into the courtyard from the back entrance.  Marston touched his hat, and said—­

“I don’t stand on forms with you, doctor, and you, I know, will waive ceremony with me.  You will find Mrs. Marston at home.”

“Nay, my dear sir,” interrupted the clergyman, sitting firm in his saddle, “my business lies with you today.”

“The devil it does!” said Marston, with discontented surprise.

“Truly it does, sir,” repeated he, with a look of gentle reproof, for the profanity of Marston’s ejaculation, far more than the rudeness of his manner, offended him; “and I grieve that your surprise should have somewhat carried you away—­”

“Well, then, Doctor Danvers,” interrupted Marston, drily, and without heeding his concluding remark, “if you really have business with me, it is, at all events, of no very pressing kind, and may be as well told after supper as now.  So, pray, go into the house and rest yourself:  we can talk together in the evening.”

“My horse is not tired,” said the clergyman, patting his steed’s neck; “and if you do not object, I will ride by your side for a short time, and as we go, I can say out what I have to tell.”

“Well, well, be it so,” said Marston, with suppressed impatience, and without more ceremony, he rode slowly along the avenue, and turned off upon the soft sward in the direction of the wildest portion of his wooded demesne, the clergyman keeping close beside him.  They proceeded some little way at a walk before Doctor Danvers spoke.

“I have been twice or thrice with that unhappy man,” at length he said.

“What unhappy man?  Unhappiness is no distinguishing singularity, is it?” said Marston, sharply.

“No, truly, you have well said,” replied Doctor Danvers.  “True it is that man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.  I speak, however, of your servant, Merton—­a most unhappy wretch.”