Lenora obeyed her father in silence, and followed him slowly, while the tears still dropped from her beautiful eyes.

Some hours afterward Monsieur De Vlierbeck might have been seen seated in the principal saloon of Grinselhof, near a little lamp, with his elbows on the table.  The apartment was dark and dreary, for the feeble rushlight illuminated but a single spot and cast the distant and lofty ceiling into vague obscurity.  The flickering flame threw long and sombre shadows over the wall, while a line of old portraits in the panels seemed to fix their stern and immovable eyes on the table.  Amid the gloom nothing came out with distinctness but the calm and noble face of the poor old gentleman, who sat there, absorbed in his reflections, fixed as a statue.

At length, rising from his chair and cautiously walking on tiptoe to the end of the room, he stopped and listened at the closed door.  “She sleeps,” said he, in a low voice; and, raising his eyes to heaven, added, with a sigh, “may God protect her rest!” Then, returning to the table, he took the lamp, and, opening a large safe which was imbedded in the wall, he went down on his knees and drew forth some napkins and a table-cloth, which he unfolded carefully to see whether they were torn or stained.  As he refolded the articles one after the other, a smile betokened that he was pleased with his examination.  Rising from this task, he went back to the table, from the drawer of which he took a piece of buckskin and whiting.  Mashing the latter with a knife-handle, he began to rub and polish several silver forks and spoons which were in a basket.  The salt-cellars and other small articles of table-service, which were mostly of the same metal, were all subjected to a similar process, and soon glittered brightly in the feeble lamplight.

While he was engaged in this strange work, the soul of the poor old man was busy with a thousand conflicting thoughts and recollections.  He was constantly muttering to himself; and many a tear escaped from his lids as he dreamed over the past and repeated the names of the loved and lost!

“Poor brother!” ejaculated he; “but one man alone in the world knows what I have done for thee, and yet that man accuses me of bad faith and ingratitude!  And thou, poor brother, art wandering in the icy solitudes of America, a prey perhaps to sickness and suffering, while for months no kindly look is fixed upon thee in that wilderness where thou earnest thy miserable wages!  Son of a noble race! thou hast become a slave to the stranger, and thy toil serves to amass the fortunes which others are to enjoy!  My love for thee has made me suffer martyrdom; but, as God is my judge, my affection has remained entire,—­untouched!  May thy soul, O brother, feel this aspiration of mine even in the isolation where thou art suffering; and may the consciousness of my love be a balm for thy misery!”

The poor gentleman was absorbed for some time in painful meditation; but after a while his dream seemed over, and he betook himself again to work.  He placed all the silver utensils side by side on the table, and, after carefully counting and examining them, resumed his soliloquy:—­