In a small house, in a sequestered part of the rich county of Warwick, the residence of Mrs. Marston and her daughter was for the present fixed.  And there, for a time, the heart-broken and desolate lady enjoyed, at least, the privilege of an immunity from the intrusions of all external trouble.  But the blow, under which the feeble remains of her health and strength were gradually to sink, had struck too surely home; and, from month to month—­almost from week to week—­the progress of decay was perceptible.

Meanwhile, though grieved and humbled, and longing to comfort his unhappy mother Charles Marston, for the present absolutely dependant upon his father, had no choice but to remain at Cambridge, and to pursue his studies there.

At Gray Forest Marston and the partner of his guilt continued to live.  The old servants were all gradually dismissed, and new ones hired by Mademoiselle de Barras.  There they dwelt, shunned by everybody, in a stricter and more desolate seclusion than ever.  The novelty of the unrestraint and licence of their new mode of life speedily passed away, and with it the excited and guilty sense of relief which had for a time produced a false and hollow gaiety.  The sense of security prompted in mademoiselle a hundred indulgences which, in her former precarious position, she would not have dreamed of.  Outbreaks of temper, sharp and sometimes violent, began to manifest themselves on her part, and renewed disappointment and blacker remorse to darken the soul of Marston himself.  Often, in the dead of the night, the servants would overhear their bitter and fierce altercations ringing through the melancholy mansion, and often the reckless use of terrible and mysterious epithets of crime.  Their quarrels increased in violence and in frequency, and, before two years had passed, feelings of bitterness, hatred, and dread, alone seemed to subsist between them.  Yet upon Marston she continued to exercise a powerful and mysterious influence.  There was a dogged, apathetic submission on his part, and a growing insolence on hers, constantly more and more strikingly visible.  Neglect, disorder, and decay, too, were more than ever apparent in the dreary air of the place.

Doctor Danvers, save by rumor and conjecture, knew nothing of Marston and his abandoned companion.  He had, more than once, felt a strong disposition to visit Gray Forest, and expostulate, face to face, with its guilty proprietor.  This idea, however, he had, upon consideration, dismissed; not on account of any shrinking from the possible repulses and affronts to which the attempt might subject him, but from a thorough conviction that the endeavor would be utterly fruitless for good, while it might, very obviously, expose him to painful misinterpretation and suspicion, and leave it to be imagined that he had been influenced, if by no meaner motive, at least by the promptings of a coarse curiosity.

Meanwhile he maintained a correspondence with Mrs. Marston, and had even once or twice since her departure visited her.  Latterly, however, this correspondence had been a good deal interrupted, and its intervals had been supplied occasionally by Rhoda, whose letters, although she herself appeared unconscious of the mournful event the approach of which they too plainly indicated, were painful records of the rapid progress of mortal decay.