And now it was painful to witness, even on the outside, the appearance of the late gay Lodore House. All was silent; the very bells were taken off the necks of the sheep that fed on the lawn; no sound was heard, but the uninterrupted murmur of the fall; every window was closed by a blind or shutter; and when any symptom of remaining life was seen, it was, at times, the figure of Mr. Jackson, in deep mourning, both of habit and attitude, leaning against the paling, and looking fixedly at the two little girls, in their little black frocks, walking, one on each side of Edmund, also dressed in black, up and down the gravel before the door, without speaking a word, or deviating from the direct path. If a meal of the children happened to be ready, Mrs. Smyth would come to the door, and preserving silence, beckon them in; then letting them pass her, and following them, look at them, and shake her head mournfully. CHAPTER XVIII "Am I indeed the cause of this?" In one of the streets of Keswick stood an old, gloomy, but respectable house. In this house was a small back parlour, receiving light from a back lane, and surrounded with shelves, covered with bottles and jars; while ranged beneath the shelves were small drawers, on the outsides of which appeared, labelled, the names of every medicine in use. In the midst of this parlour stood a table; on the table stood a number of bottles, with the apparatus for various chemical experiments; and before the table, wrapped in a loose dressing-gown, slippers on his feet, his grey hair uncombed, stood Doctor Dixon. On his face a haggard expression of fear, inverted the lines of harmless mirth which had so often mingled, gleefully, with those of age, on the poor man's features. His step was uncertain, and his hand trembled, as he selected another and another bottle from a shelf, or another paper from a drawer. His whole frame seemed to have undergone a species of dissolution; and all the infirmities of old age, which he had hitherto, with so much gaiety, warded off, seemed to have been suddenly let in upon him. In short, his heart was broken! A terrible suspicion had for some days pressed upon his mind; his experiments, his researches, had failed to throw any light upon the subject; he had not dared to communicate his thoughts to any one. He sat down. At length he exclaimed, "I--I, who should have healed, have I destroyed?" Tears came to his relief. "I am an old man," he said, in a faltering tone, "I cannot live long: would I had died before this had happened!" After a long silence, during which he moved his lips often, and seemed to undergo a powerful inward struggle, he pronounced, with the air of one refusing an importunate request, "Never! never! never!"