"Where is the man--Hastings?" I exclaimed, addressing the old couple. As I uttered these words, a loud shriek proceeded from a bed behind me, and a female dropt upon the floor. I knew that voice,--I knew it well;--but it did not move me. "Mrs. Harris is ill," said the old woman; "permit us to pass you, sir;--it is one of the fits to which she is subject." I allowed the woman to step by me, who, raising the lifeless form beside her, drew it into an adjoining room. "What do you want, sir? what is your business here?" inquired the man. I placed one hand into my coat-pocket and grasped a pistol, and with the other seized the man by the collar. "Where is Harris?" said I. "You had best tell me; you are a dead man else. He is hid somewhere--he is below, in the house--where is he?" "He is there," gasped the man; and he pointed towards the bed, upon which a body was lying, covered with a linen cloth. I sank upon a chair. Hastings had indeed escaped me, and for ever. I was left alone, for the man had hurried from the room. I cannot describe the agony of feeling which I underwent during the next half-hour. I took the light, and, walking to the bed, drew the linen cloth from the face of the corpse. How awful! how mysterious is the power of death! The man who had insulted, who had wronged, who had betrayed me,--whose ingratitude--of all crimes the vilest and the basest--had inverted my very soul,--this man lay before me cold, serene, tranquil, miserable, callously insensible,--and yet I had no power to curse him. There was no serenity, no tranquillity upon the face, when I gazed upon it more closely. The brow was corrugated, the cheeks collapsed, and the eyelids sunken; and there was the soul's torture, as it left a tortured body impressed upon the face. Enough to have mitigated a more implacable hatred than mine! I left the room, and walked down stairs. As I proceeded along the passage, the man whom I had before seen came out of a lower room, and opened the door for me. I was about to depart, when he caught me gently but firmly by the arm. "Oh, sir!" said he earnestly, "do not leave the house without seeing Mrs. Harris. She has relapsed into another fit; but when she comes to herself, it will be a comfort to her to see a friend of her husband. You knew him, sir, when living; and for his sake, perhaps--" the man paused for a moment, and continued,--"you have a benevolent heart, sir,--I am sure you have,--and if you knew all, even though he may have wronged you----" It was an unseasonable time for an appeal of this nature. The passions that had been forced back upon my heart had yet scarce begun to subside, but I spoke calmly. "You will tell her Mr. Saville has been here;" and I was going. "Mr. Saville!" repeated the man. "Oh, sir, we have heard that name mentioned frequently of late. You will come again, or send, perhaps;--will you not, sir?"