At last Marjory, in the sickness of her heart, went to the old Tower, to her uncle’s room. There she could talk a little at least, which might be a relief. Mr. Fanshawe had long before left that refuge of learning and leisure, and Mr. Charles, who was compiling a family history, sat among his papers with his spectacles on his nose, collecting facts and arranging pedigrees, as calmly as though there were no present anxieties to disturb his mind, or future to thrill it into terror. “Well, May, my dear!” he said, cheerily, looking up at her over the top of his spectacles; and then relapsed into his work. It is impossible to estimate the advantage which that work was to Mr. Charles Hay-Heriot. It kept him occupied, it kept him happy, it gave him “a duty” which he was bent on performing and a “responsibility” which he was proud to feel. He would search for days together to prove the accuracy of a date--happy days, during which he felt himself as important as Herodotus. Friends all over the country would stop him when they met, and would write him letters when they were apart, to ask how “his work” was progressing. He had come now to a very important part of that work. He had collected all the materials for his fifth chapter, which began the Reformation period, and he had now begun the work of composition, putting these materials together, which was a very interesting and solemn operation. He had not said anything about this _Opus_ to Fanshawe the first time he had invited him to his room; but to-day, in the confidence of increasing friendship, he had told him, and the little flutter of pleasurable importance with which he had taken the stranger into his confidence hung about him still. “Well, May, my dear,” he said, after a long pause, “you have come to see how I am getting on?” “I am looking at you, Uncle Charles,” said Marjory, dreamily. How far off he seemed from her in that placid, gentle old age, with the occupation that pleased him as its games please a child! Could his blood boil any more, or his heart throb any more as hers was throbbing? She sighed unconsciously as she spoke. It seemed to her that Fanshawe, who was a stranger, yet who was in full tide of life, and knew what it meant to be cast about by varying tumults of feeling, would understand her better than her calm old uncle--“though he was a stranger,” Marjory, in her unconsciousness, said to herself. “Well, my dear, I hope it’s no uninstructive,” said Mr. Charles, with a gentle laugh. “I do not set up for genius; but so far as work goes--honest work--”