She carefully examined his pockets, his writing-desk, and bureau, but to no purpose—­looking carefully into every drawer and chest that had not been sold by public auction or private contract.  Not a corner of the chamber was left unexplored—­not a closet or shelf escaped her strict examination, until, giving up the search as perfectly hopeless, she resumed her station at his bed-side, to watch through the long winter night—­without a fire, and by the wan gleam that a miserable rush-light shed through the spacious and lofty room—­the restless slumbers of the miser.  She was ill, out of spirits, fatigued with her fruitless exertion, and deeply disappointed at her want of success.

The solitary light threw a ghastly livid hue on the strongly-marked features of the sleeper, rendered sharp and haggard by disease and his penurious habits; she could just distinguish through the gloom the spectre-like form of the invalid, and the long bony attenuated hands which grasped, from time to time, the curtains and bedclothes, as he tossed from side to side in his feverish unrest.  Elinor continued to watch the dark and perturbed countenance of the sleeper, until he became an object of fear, and she fancied that it was some demon who had for a time usurped the human shape, and not the brother of Algernon—­the man whom she had voluntarily attended to the altar, and in the presence of Almighty God had sworn to love, honor, and obey, and to cherish in sickness and in health.

A crushing sense of all the deception that had been practiced upon her, of her past wrongs and present misery, made her heart die within her, and her whole soul overflow with bitterness.  She wrung her hands, and smote her breast in an agony of despair; but in that dark hour no tear relieved her burning brain, or moistened her eyes.  She had once been under the dominion of insanity; she felt that her reason in that moment hung upon a thread; that, if she pursued much longer her present thoughts, they would drive her mad; that, if she continued to gaze much longer on the face of her husband, she would be tempted to plunge a knife, which lay on the table near her, into his breast.  With a desperate effort she drew her eyes from the sleeper, and turned from the bed.  Her gaze fell upon a large full-length picture in oils, which hung opposite.  It was the portrait of one of Mark’s ancestors, a young man who had fallen in his first battle, on the memorable field of Flodden.  It bore a strong resemblance to Algernon, and Elinor prized it on that account, and would sit for hours with her head resting upon her hand, and her eyes riveted on this picture.  This night it seemed to regard her with a sad and mournful aspect; and the large blue eyes appeared to return her fixed gaze with the sorrowful earnestness of life.

“My head is strangely confused,” she murmured, half aloud.  “Into what new extravagance will my treacherous fancy hurry me to-night?  Ah me! physical wants and mental suffering, added to this long watching, will turn my brain.”