“’Twas no loss of honourable feeling that made him Falconer’s companion!” said I, impulsively.

“Then,” cried he, quickly, with eagerness in his voice, “’twas to fight Falconer?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Thank God, then, if he had to die, ’twas not as that man’s friend, but his antagonist!  My poor, brave Tom!  My noble boy!  Oh, would I had known him better while he lived!”

“He was all that is chivalrous and true, sir.”

“I wanted only this assurance.  I felt it in my heart.  Don’t fear my betraying you; I understand how these affairs have to be managed at such times.  Alas, if I had but known in time to prevent!  Well, well, ’tis too late now.  But there is one person I must confide this to—­Philip.”

“But I haven’t told you anything, sir.”

“Quite true; and therefore what I shall confide to Philip will not be of your telling.  He will be silent, too.  We shall make no disclosures.  Falconer shall receive his punishment in another manner.”

“He shall, sir,” said I, with a positiveness which, in his feeling of sorrow, and yet relief, to know that Tom had died as champion of the family honour, escaped his notice.  I thereupon took my leave.

As I afterward came to know, he sent Philip an account of the whole lamentable affair, from Ned’s reappearance to Tom’s death; it was written in a cipher agreed upon between the two, and ’twas carried by Bill Meadows.  Mr. Faringfield deemed it better that Philip should know the whole truth from his relation, than learn of Madge’s departure, and Tom’s fate, from other accounts, which must soon reach his ears in any case.

I know not exactly how many days later it was, that, having a free evening in the town, I went to the Faringfield house in hope of bearing some cheer with me.  But ’twas in vain.  Mrs. Faringfield was keeping her chamber, and requiring Fanny’s attendance.  Mr. Faringfield sat in a painful reverie, before the parlour fire; scarce looked up when I entered; and seemed to find the lively spirits I brought in from the cold outer world, a jarring note upon his mood.  He had not ordered candles:  the firelight was more congenial to his meditations.  Mr. Cornelius sat in a dark corner of the room, lending his silent sympathy, and perhaps a fitting word now and then, to the merchant’s reflections.

Old Noah, the only servant I saw, reflected in his black face the sorrow that had fallen on the home, and stepped with the tread of a ghost.  I soon took my leave, having so far failed to carry any brightness into the stricken house, that I came away filled with a sadness akin to its own.  I walked forward aimlessly through the wintry dusk, thinking life all sorrow, the world all gloom.

Suddenly the sound of laughter struck my ears.  Could there indeed be mirth anywhere—­nay, so near at hand—­while such woe dwelt in the house I had left?  The merriment seemed a violence, a sacrilege, an insult.  I looked angrily at the place whence the noise proceeded.  ’Twas from the parlour of the King’s Arms tavern—­for, in my doleful ponderings, my feet had carried me, scarce consciously, so far from Queen Street.  I peered in through the lighted window.  A number of officers were drinking, after dinner, at a large table, and ’twas the noise of their boisterous gaiety that my unhappy feelings had so swiftly resented.