sat after this with a strange sensation, as if that sound of the door had jarred him in every limb. He did not seem able to move to see what it was. But the stillness that fell upon the little house was ominous. Instead of the excited voices which had been audible a little while ago, filling the place with contention, what a strange deadly sort of quiet! Arthur was wearied out. So many vicissitudes of feeling had not occurred in all his previous life as had come to him within these five months past. Happiness, delight, disappointment, vexation, irritated nerves, wounded affection, mortified pride, and that combination of impassioned love and disenchanted vision which is of all things in the world the hardest to bear. How different, how different from his anticipations! How lightly the lovers’ quarrels had gone off, quenched in tears and smiles, and mutual confessions and warmer fondness. “The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.” But then that must not go too far, or continue too long, and the shiver of hot shame which she had brought over him so often, the uncertainty as to how she would acquit herself which was always present, the passionate mortification with which he had seen other people’s smiles, or heard other people’s comments, all these were very different from the lovers’ quarrels. He held his Demosthenes steadily in his hand, and attempted to read. How far off it was! and the other so near; and of all the things that can occupy a man’s ear, what is so absorbing as the dead silence of vacancy after a struggle which has threatened everything, and had ended in--what? Nothing, silence, vacancy, probably bringing no consequence at all. Nancy did not come in at the hour of luncheon. He waited for her, refusing that refreshment until it was clear she did not mean to come back. Then he swallowed a glass of wine hastily, and prepared in his turn to go out--not to seek her. He was resolved that this time, at least, she should be left in tranquillity, left to do what pleased her best. He had just gone into the hall to get his hat when some one came to the door. How his heart jumped! and how sick it grew again when it turned out to be only Mr. Eagles, who had come to make a serious remonstrance. “You oughtn’t to lose your time,” the “coach” said, bending his brows. “If you can’t do anything better, you should come back to me. The old set are still hard at work, and there are two or three new men that will make their mark. It can’t be lively here, doing nothing. Why, you’ve nothing to do, not even fishing or football, eh? I never hear of you playing football. What do you do?” “Nothing,” said Arthur; “and I can’t say I like it; but what’s the good? I am too old for football and that sort of thing.” “Ah, four-and-twenty, that’s a great age; but I know what you mean. Married! there’s the rub--feel yourself too grand for it. But look here, Curtis. A man can’t live with nothing to do.”