Maltravers turned, and his face was now calm and serene save by its extreme and almost ghastly paleness, no trace of the hell within him could be discovered. "Pardon me," said he, gently, "I know not this morning what I say or do; think not of it, think not of me,--it will pass away when I hear your voice." "Shall I sing to you the words I spoke of last night? See, I have them ready; I know them by heart, but I thought you might like to read them, they are so full of simple but deep feeling." Maltravers took the song from her hands, and bent over the paper; at first, the letters seemed dim and indistinct, for there was a mist before his eyes; but at last a chord of memory was struck,--he recalled the words: they were some of those he had composed for Alice in the first days of their delicious intercourse,--links of the golden chain, in which he had sought to bind the spirit of knowledge to that of love. "And from whom," said he, in a faint voice, as he calmly put down the verses,--"from whom did your mother learn these words?" "I know not; some dear friend, years ago, composed and gave them to her. It must have been one very dear to her, to judge by the effect they still produce." "Think you," said Maltravers, in a hollow voice, "think you IT WAS YOUR FATHER?" "My father! She never speaks of him! I have been early taught to shun all allusion to his memory. My father!--it is probable; yes, it may have been my father; whom else could she have loved so fondly?" There was a long silence; Evelyn was the first to break it. "I have heard from my mother to-day, Ernest; her letter alarms me,--I scarce know why!" "Ah! and how--" "It is hurried and incoherent,--almost wild: she says she has learned some intelligence that has unsettled and unstrung her mind; she has requested me to inquire if any one I am acquainted with has heard of, or met abroad, some person of the name of Butler. You start!--have you known one of that name?" "I!--did your mother never allude to that name before?" "Never!--and yet, once I remember--" "What?" That I was reading an account in the papers of the sudden death of some Mr. Butler; and her agitation made a powerful and strange impression upon me,--in fact, she fainted, and seemed almost delirious when she recovered; she would not rest till I had completed the account, and when I came to the particulars of his age, etc. (he was old, I think) she clasped her hands, and wept; but they seemed tears of joy. The name is so common--whom of that name have you known?" "It is no matter. Is that your mother's letter; is that her handwriting?"