Shrieking this to a sort of frenzied measure, he suddenly broke away, and took the Dalwynch road, up Mirkland Hill. Mary listened with some feeling of relief to his fading strains, then sighed, and wiped from her eyes a few honest tears. “He was not always a bad man, I am sure,” soliloquised she pitifully, “and now God forgive him--he knows not what he's doing! He is mad.” CHAPTER XI. THE RECONCILIATION. |THE day after a great festivity in a great house is generally a dull one. It begins late; for both servants and guests are wearied, and there is nothing about it which is not inferior to other days except the luncheon, which in the way of “sweets,” at all events, is always exceptionally good. Sir Richard, however, who went through life as nearly as could be to an automaton, was up at his usual time; and descending to the empty breakfast-room, beheld, seated in an arm-chair which he had wheeled to the window, a little wizzened old man, in brightest Hessian boots, drab breeches, and a cut-away coat with flap-pockets of the fashion of half a century ago. “Dr Haldane!” exclaimed the young man in extreme amazement. “God bless my soul _and_ body!” “I hope he will, sir,” rejoined the visitor drily, extending three fingers somewhat stiffly. “No, sir; surely your whole hand!” cried the baronet warmly. “Your face is the pleasantest sight--save that of my dear mother's--that I could hope to set eyes on in Mirk Abbey; and I am not going to be fobbed off with such a salutation as that.” “You get nothing more from me, Richard, unless the business I have come about--very much against the grain, I can tell you--gets satisfactorily accomplished.” “Does it relate to my dear mother, sir?” “Of course it does, young man. What else, do you think, would have had power to break my resolution--to bring me hither--to this room, in which I have not set foot these twenty years, and where I last sat, side by side--with---- But what is that to you? I suppose a man is not very likely to be moved by the memories of a dead father, who pays no respect to the feelings of his living mother.” “I am not aware, Dr Haldane,” began Sir Richard with some haughtiness---- “I know _that_, sir,” broke in the other impetuously. “You are so wrapped up in selfishness--you and that scampish brother of yours--that neither of you have any thought except for your own miserable quarrels. You were not aware, I dare say, that their constant repetition is driving your mother into her grave, as they have already driven her from her once happy home; and it is because you don't know it--because you won't see it--that I am come hither, once for all, to inform you of the fact. But perhaps such a little matter has no interest in your eyes: in which case, I assure you, since it is entirely for her sake, and not at all for yours, that I have come, I shall be exceedingly glad to go away again.”