From the senseless figure upon the bed, over which the strange doctor was stooping, his fingers busy with hopeless investigations at the heart and the wrist--from the ghastly distorted face, so much more terrible, with its rouge and cosmetics, its wig and its pearl powder all removed, than any face of reverend old age, however worn and wasted, can ever be--from the limp, bluish hand lying upon the coverlet, with the heavy seal-ring and its pretentious blazon, with the showy golden buttons hanging from the loosened sleeve--Katharine's haggard gaze roamed over the room almost unconsciously. It was in most respects the same as when she had inhabited it; but several of her father's special belongings had been brought from the den, and occupied the place of the feminine properties dispossessed. Her dressing-table, none too large for Mr. Guyon's requirements, was in its accustomed place, and the long glass had not been moved. But the writing-table she had been accustomed to use was there no longer, and in its place, in the recess beside the fireplace, stood a large cabinet, whose heavy doors closed over a range of wide, shallow shelves, and also shut in a desk. A basket, half full of scraps of torn paper, stood between the burly carved legs of this old-fashioned piece of furniture; and in front of it was the well-worn red-leather arm-chair which Katharine remembered from her babyhood. The clothes which had been taken off the insensible man were lying in a heap over the back of this chair--bright in colour, juvenile in cut, and painful to see, when one glanced from them to their wearer of a few hours ago. A bunch of keys had fallen from the gaping coat-pocket upon the ground, where it lay with a few crumpled papers, a card of the races being conspicuous among them. "I believe I can do no more," said the strange doctor, as at length he relinquished his hopeless task. Then the two left the room together, and after a little Katharine's old friend returned. By this time she had drawn a chair to the bedside, and was seated there, gazing fixedly on the rigid face, which looked as though death itself, when it should come, would not seal it more utterly up from all impressions of the outer world. She was lost in thought, and was quite passive while the doctor gave his final directions to the housekeeper, who was to remain all night with the dying man. She understood him to say that he must go home now (he lived close by), but was to be summoned if any change took place. He gave a few simple directions, which the two women could carry out, and which were of a merely perfunctory character, and designed to relieve them by giving them occupation, rather than the patient, for whom there was nothing more to be done until the undertaker's turn should have arrived; and he went away, whispering to Katharine that if he were not sent for sooner, he would be with her at seven on the following morning.