And how did he spend those hours of guilty solitude? in terrors? in remorse? in misery?  Not he:  Julian was too wise to sit and think, and in the dark too; but he lit both reading lamps to keep away the gloom, and smoked and drank till morning’s dawn to stupify his conscience.

Then, to make it seem all right, he went down to breakfast as usual, though any thing but sober, and met unflinchingly his mother’s natural question—­

“Good morning, Julian—­where’s Charles?”

“How should I know, mother; isn’t he up yet?”

“No, my dear; and what is more, I doubt if he came home last night.”

“Hollo, Master Charles! pretty doings these, Mr. Sabbath-teacher! so he slept out, eh, mother?”

“I don’t know—­but where did you leave him, Julian?”

“Who!  I? did I go out with him?  Oh! yes, now I recollect:  let’s see, we strolled together midway to Oxton, and, as he was going somewhat further, there I left him?”

How true the words, and yet how terribly false their meaning!

“Dear me, that’s very odd—­isn’t it, general?”

“Not at all, ma’am—­not at all; leave the lad alone, he’ll be back by dinner-time:  I didn’t think the boy had so much spirit.”

Emily, to whom the general’s hint was Greek, looked up cheerfully and in her own glad mind chuckled at her Charles’s bold adventure.

But the day passed, off, and they sent out men to seek for him:  and another—­and all Burleigh was a-stir:  and another—­and the coast-guards from Lyme to Plymouth Sound searched every hole and corner:  and another—­when his mother wept five minutes:  and another—­when the wonder was forgotten.

However, they did not put on mourning for the truant:  he might turn up yet:  perhaps he was at Oxford.

Emily had not much to do in comforting the general for his dear son’s loss; it clearly was a gain to him, and he felt far freer than when wisdom’s eye was on him.  Charles had been too keen for father, mother, and brother; too good, too amiable:  he saw their ill, condemned it by his life, and showed their dark too black against his brightness.  The unnatural deficiency of mother’s love had not been overrated:  Julian had all her heart; and she felt only obliged to the decamping Charles for leaving Emily so free and clear to his delightful brother.  She never thought him dead:  death was a repulsive notion at all times to her:  no doubt he would turn up again some day.  And Julian joked with her about that musty proverb “a bad penny.”

As to our dear heroine, she never felt so happy in all her life before as now, even when her Charles had been beside her; for within a day of his departure he had written her a note full of affection, hope, and gladness; assuring her of his health, and wealth, and safe arrival on board the Indiaman.  The noble-hearted youth never said one single word about his brother’s crime:  but he did warn his Emmy to keep close beside the general.  This note she got through Mrs. Sainsbury; that invalid lady at Oxton, who never troubled herself to ask or hear one word beyond her own little world—­a certain physic-corner cupboard.