Once more he stopped. The frail figure which had been feebly rising out of the chair, while he held up the Hair Bracelet, suddenly and heavily sank back in it--he saw the eyelids half close, and a great stillness pass over the face--he heard one deep-drawn breath: but no cry now, no moaning, no murmuring--no sound whatever, except the steady splash of the fast-falling rain on the pavement outside. Dead? A thought of Zack welled up into his heart, and troubled it. He hesitated for a moment, then bent over the chair, and put his hand on the bosom of the deathly figure reclining in it. A faint fluttering was still to be felt; and the pulse, when he tried that next, was beating feebly. It was not death he looked on now, but the swoon that is near neighbor to it. For a minute or two, he stood with his eyes fixed on the white calm face beneath him, thinking. “If me and Zack,” he whispered to himself; “hadn’t been brothers together--” He left the sentence unfinished, took his hat quickly, and quitted the room. In the passage down-stairs, he met one of the female servants, who opened the street-door for him. “Your master wants you,” he said, with an effort. He spoke those words, passed by her, and left the house. CHAPTER XVII. MATTHEW GRICE’S REVENGE. Neither looking to the right nor the left, neither knowing nor caring whither he went, Matthew Grice took the first turning he came to, which led him out of Baregrove Square. It happened to be the street communicating with the long suburban road, at the remote extremity of which Mr. Blyth lived. Mat followed this road mechanically, not casting a glance at the painter’s abode when he passed it, and taking no notice of a cab, with luggage on the roof; which drew up, as he walked by, at the garden gate. If he had only looked round at the vehicle for a moment, he must have seen Valentine sitting inside it, and counting out the money for his fare. But he still went on--straight on, looking aside at nothing. He fronted the wind and the clearing quarter of the sky as he walked. The shower was now fast subsiding; and the first rays of returning sunlight, as they streamed through mist and cloud, fell tenderly and warmly on his face. Though he did not show it outwardly, there was strife and trouble within him. The name of Zack was often on his lips, and he varied constantly in his rate of walking; now quickening, now slackening his pace at irregular intervals. It was evening before he turned back towards home--night, before he sat down again in the chair by young Thorpe’s bedside.