"Yes, your sense of disinterested justice may be satisfied; but your heart, will it remain equally so? The cause which you have so generously espoused, established; will not other feelings re-assert their power, and my brother again triumph in the possession of that which, to call my own, I would gladly have cast at his feet the richest inheritance on earth?" These words were uttered with almost breathless agitation. "No," was the reply in a voice so low and trembling that the anxious listener had to hold his breath to catch its accents; "such feelings have long been destroyed, and can never re-assert their influence. Even pity is done away save for the wounded conscience, which he who once I loved must carry with him through life; yes, pity even is now scarcely to be excited; and love--can love survive esteem?" With a jealous, yearning glance Eustace Trevor watched the tears again falling from the agitated speaker's eyes, kissed away by the sympathising child; and then he rose and began again to pace the room as if to stem some fresh torrent of inward emotion which stirred within his breast. But at this juncture the door opened abruptly, and in another moment Eustace Trevor's hand was clasped in Louis de Burgh's, who, followed by Arthur Seaham, entered the room; and Mary, leaning on her brother's arm, left the re-united friends together. CHAPTER XXI. Flesh and blood, You brother mine, that entertained ambition, Expelled remorse and nature, I do forgive thee, Unnatural as thou art-- Forgive thy rankest fault. TEMPEST. Arthur Seaham stood at the hall door two days after, looking out for the carriage which was to convey himself and sister from Silverton, some delay having been occasioned by the non-arrival of the post-horses. Suddenly a single horse's hoof was heard approaching, and he had but just time to retreat out of observation, when Eugene Trevor rode up to the door. Arthur Seaham could not but feel shocked at his altered appearance--his haggard countenance, and the strong marks of mental suffering it exhibited. His very form seemed bowed down by the sudden weight of care and anxiety which had fallen upon him; and when, having dismounted, and rang the bell, he stood there, whilst waiting for the servant to attend the summons, unconscious of human regard, holding his horse's rein;--there was something touching to the young man's kindly heart, in the manner in which Eugene Trevor stroked the glossy mane of the noble animal as it rubbed its head against his master's shoulder, looking up affectionately into his face. The action seemed as expressively as words to say: