uneasily about the room until he had lighted a match, and a candle, with which he went into the next room, still half-looking over his shoulder, as if fearing that something dogged him.  He opened the closet where he kept his wine.  He restlessly filled a large glass and poured it down his throat—­not as if he were drinking, but as if he were taking an antidote.  He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and half-smiled a sickly smile.

But still his eyes wandered nervously to the spot in which his uncle had stood; still he seemed to fear that he should see a ghostly figure standing there and pointing at him; should see himself, in some phantom counterpart, sitting in the chair.  His eyes opened as if he were listening intently.  For in the midnight he thought he heard, in that dim light he thought he saw, the Prophet and the King.  He did not remember more the words his uncle had spoken.  But he heard only, “Thou art the man!  Thou art the man!”

And all night long, as he dreamed or restlessly awoke, he heard the same words, spoken as if with finger pointed—­“Thou art the man!  Thou art the man!”

CHAPTER LII.

BREAKERS.

Lawrence Newt had certainly told the truth of his brother’s home.  Mr. Boniface Newt had become so surly that it was not wise to speak to him.  He came home late, and was angry if dinner were not ready, and cross if it were.  He banged all the doors, and swore at all the chairs.  After dinner he told May not to touch the piano, and begged his wife, for Heaven’s sake, to take up some book, and not to sit with an air of imbecile vacancy that was enough to drive a man distracted.  He snarled at the servants, so that they went about the house upon tip-toe and fled his presence, and were constantly going away, causing Mrs. Newt to pass many hours of the week in an Intelligence Office.  Mr. Newt found holes in the carpets, stains upon the cloths, knocks upon the walls, nicks in the glasses and plates at table, scratches upon the furniture, and defects and misfortunes every where.  He went to bed without saying good-night, and came down without a good-morning.  He sat at breakfast morose and silent; or he sighed, and frowned, and muttered, and went out without a smile or a good-by.  There was a profound gloom in the house, an unnatural order.  Nobody dared to derange the papers or books upon the tables, to move the chairs, or to touch any thing.  If May appeared in a new dress he frowned, and his wife trembled every time she put in a breast-pin.

Only in her own room was May mistress of every thing.  If any body had looked into it he would have seen only the traces of a careful and elegant hand, and often enough he would have seen a delicate girl-face, almost too thoughtful for so young a face, resting upon the hand, as if May Newt were troubled and perplexed by the gloom of the house and the silence of the household.  Her window opened over the street, and there were a few horse-chestnut trees before the house.  She made friends with them, and they covered themselves with blossoms for her pleasure.  She sat for hours at her window, looking into the trees, sewing, reading, musing—­solitary as a fairy princess in a tower.