No barrier defended the deserted dwelling. Eustace walked round the house, and peered in at the casements, whereof the shutters gaped open, as if their fastenings had rusted and dropped off with the progress of time. Within the traveller saw scanty furniture of a remote era, white with dust. He pulled the rusty handle of a bell, and a discordant jangle sounded in the distant offices; but he had no hope of finding any inmate. The abode bore upon its front an unmistakable stamp of abandonment. After pulling the jangling bell a second time, Eustace tried one of the windows. Half a dozen broken panes gaped wide, as if in invitation to the burglar’s hand. He unhasped the sash, pushed open the spurious Gothic window, and went in. The room in which he found himself had once been gaily decorated; but little except the tawdry traces of vanished colour and tarnished gilding remained in evidence of its former splendour. The furniture was battered and worn, and of the scantiest description. Lank, empty book-cases of painted and gilded wood stood in the recesses of the fire-place. He tried to picture his father and mother seated together in that dreary room; his mother watching by that dilapidated casement. The room might have been bright enough five-and-twenty years ago. On the same floor there was another room, with less evidence of departed decoration; above there were four bed-chambers, and here the furniture was piled pell-mell, as in a lumber-room. The view from the windows was sublimity itself, and Eustace did not wonder that a Scottish nobleman should have chosen to build himself a nest on so picturesque a spot. He walked slowly through the rooms, wondering where _her_ aching head had lain, where _her_ sad heart had stifled its griefs, where _her_ penitent knees had bent to the Heaven her sin had offended. To tread these floors which she had trodden, to look from these windows whence she had gazed, seemed to him worth the journey the barren privilege had cost him. He lingered in the dusty rooms for some time, thinking of that one sad inhabitant whose presence had made the house sacred to him as the holy dwelling of Loretto to faithful pilgrims, and then softly and slowly departed, pausing only to gather a few sprigs of sweet-brier that grew in a sheltered corner of the neglected garden. With these in his breast he went back to the road leading to Killalochie, and bent his steps towards that humble settlement. He looked at his watch as he regained the road. It was three o’clock, and by six he could be with his uncle, who would scarcely care to dine until that hour. “I can take him to that house to-morrow,” he said to himself, “if he would like to see it. And I dare say it would be a mournful pleasure to him to see the rooms, as it has been to me. It is like looking at a grave.” CHAPTER XIV. HOPELESS.