The next day she was too ill to rise. Her maid was sent for, and with her Mary a day or two after went to a pretty cottage not far distant, belonging to her brother, where he was soon to join her. The Morgans were not then in the country. CHAPTER XV. But now, alas! the place seems changed, Thou art no longer here: Part of the sunshine of the scene With thee did disappear. LONGFELLOW. Confess! Record myself A villain! VENICE PRESERVED. Mary Seaham's letter reached Montrevor the day after Mabel Marryott's funeral. Eugene Trevor tore it open eagerly, turned ashy pale as he perused it, then, thrusting it into his pocket, went about his business as before. Day after day went by, and the letter remained unanswered--unacted upon. With sullen defiance, or silent contempt, Eugene Trevor seemed to have determined upon treating the earnest appeal the important requisition it contained. The appeal he endeavoured to consider it of a weak, simple woman, who probably looked upon an affair of so serious--nay, he was forced to acknowledge, so fearful--a nature in no stronger light than that of some romantic fiction, only costing the actor engaged in it the struggle of some heroic and high-wrought feeling to bring the matter to a satisfactory issue; and who little knew that it would have been far easier to him to put a pistol to his head, than to draw down upon himself such ruin--in every sense of the word--as the sacrifice so calmly required of him by the fair and gentle Mary Seaham must entail. "Senseless girl! what! recall my father's incensed heir to his admiring friends, now all up in arms at the treatment--the persecution, they would call it--that he had received at my hands! restore him in all the strength and brightness of his intellect, striking conviction to every mind as to the truth of the testimonies, which would not fail to start up on every side, to substantiate the false nature of the plea which had alienated him from his lawful rights. Then how would vague reports find confirmation! surmises, suspicions be brought to light! And what would become of _me_? what would become of my debts--my character--my honour--my covetousness?" If these were in any sort the reflections which influenced Eugene Trevor for the next week or so after the receipt of Mary's letter, that letter seemed to have had at any rate the power of subduing for a time his energies and courage in the prosecution of former designs. He made no attempt to alter his father's obstinate determination to keep wholly to his bed. He seemed suddenly to have lost his anxiety as to securing the will, and discovering the remaining forged notes. He was moody, gloomy, apathetic. One day chance took him to that part of the house where his mother's boudoir was situated. Pausing as he passed the door, he pushed it open, and entered.