“I go to church every Sunday, and take Willett along with me.  No one from this seems to think of doing so but ourselves.  I see the Mervyns there.  Mrs. Mervyn is particularly kind; and I know that she wishes to offer me an asylum at Newton Park; and you cannot think with how much tenderness and delicacy she conveys the wish.  But I dare not hint the subject to my father; and, earnestly as I desire it, I could not but feel that I should go there, not to visit, but to reside.  And so even in this, in many respects, delightful project, is mingled the bitter apprehension of dependence—­something so humiliating, that, kindly and delicately as the offer is made, I could not bring myself to embrace it.  I have a great deal to say to you, and long to see you."...

These extracts will enable the reader to form a tolerably accurate idea of the general state of affairs at Gray Forest.  Some particulars must, however, be added.

Marston continued to be the same gloomy and joyless being as heretofore.  Sometimes moody and apathetic, sometimes wayward and even savage, but never for a moment at ease, never social—­an isolated, disdainful, ruined man.

One day as Rhoda sate and read under the shade of some closely-interwoven evergreens, in a lonely and sheltered part of the neglected pleasure-grounds, with her honest maid Willett in attendance, she was surprised by the sudden appearance of her father, who stood unexpectedly before her.  Though his attitude for some time was fixed, his countenance was troubled with anxiety and pain, and his sunken eyes rested upon her with a fiery and fretted gaze.  He seemed lost in thought for a while, and then, touching Willett sharply on the shoulder, said abruptly: 

“Go; I shall call you when you are wanted.  Walk down that alley.”  And, as he spoke, he indicated with his walking-cane the course he desired her to take.

When the maid was sufficiently distant to be quite out of hearing, Marston sate down beside Rhoda upon the bench, and took her hand in silence.  His grasp was cold, and alternately relaxed and contracted with an agitated uncertainty, while his eyes were fixed upon the ground, and he seemed meditating how to open the conversation.  At last, as if suddenly awaking from a fearful reverie, he said—­“You correspond with Charles?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, with the respectful formality prescribed by the usages of the time, “we correspond regularly.”

“Aye, aye; and, pray, when did you last hear from him?” he continued.

“About a month since, sir,” she replied.

“Ha—­and—­and—­was there nothing strange—­nothing—­nothing mysterious and menacing in his letter?  Come, come, you know what I speak of.”  He stopped abruptly, and stared in her face with an agitated gaze.

“No, indeed, sir; there was not anything of the kind,” she replied.

“I have been greatly shocked, I may say incensed,” said Marston excitedly, “by a passage in his last letter to me.  Not that it says anything specific; but—­but it amazes me—­it enrages me.”