“Depart, my lord,” she replied, “go! I shall not accompany you. I will not be a witness to the disinheriting of my son. You have been very hasty, my lord, in condemning forever. What can we know of the future? You have very soon despaired of God’s mercy.” “The future,” said Lord Kysington, “at my age, is all in the passing hour. If I am to act, there is no time for delay—the present moment is my only certainty.” “Do as you will,” Eva replied. “I will return to the house where I was happy with my husband. I will remain there with your grandson, Lord William Kysington; this name, his only heritage, he shall retain; and though the world may never know it till it is inscribed on his tomb, nevertheless your name is that of my son.” Eight days from this time Eva Meredith descended the staircase, still holding her son by the hand as when she first entered that fatal house. Lady Mary was behind, a few steps higher up, and numerous domestics gathered together in melancholy silence, were looking on, and regretting that mild mistress driven from her paternal roof. In quitting this house, Eva left the only beings whom she knew on earth, the only ones from whom she had the right to claim pity; the world was before her, boundless and void—it was Hagar departing for the desert. “This is dreadful, doctor!” exclaimed the village doctor’s auditors. “Are there, then, lives so completely miserable—and you too have witnessed them?” “I did witness all,” said Doctor Barnabé; “but I have not yet told you all, allow me to finish.” Soon after the departure of Eva Meredith, Lord Kysington started for London. Finding myself once more at liberty, I renounced all desire of improving myself—I possessed enough skill for my native village, and I returned to it immediately. And again we stood in that little white house, reunited as before this two years’ absence; but the time which had passed had augmented the heaviness of misfortune. We neither of us dared to speak of the future, that unknown time of which we have all so much need, and without which the present moment, if it is joyous, passes by with a transient happiness, if sad, with indelible sorrow.