The particulars of Gawtrey’s fate, with his real name and the various aliases he had assumed, had appeared in the French journals, had been partially copied into the English; and Morton had expected to have been saved the painful narrative of that fearful death; but the utter seclusion of the old man, his infirmity, and his estranged habits, had shut him out from the intelligence that it now devolved on Philip to communicate. Morton hesitated a little before he answered: “It is late now; you are not yet prepared to receive this poor infant at your home, nor to hear the details I have to state. I arrived in England but to-day. I shall lodge in the neighbourhood, for it is dear to me. If I may feel sure, then, that you will receive and treasure this sacred and last deposit bequeathed to you by your unhappy son, I will bring my charge to you to-morrow, and we will then, more calmly than we can now, talk over the past.” “You do not answer my question,” said Simon, passionately; “answer that, and I will wait for the rest. They call me a miser! Did I send out my only child to starve? Answer that!” “Be comforted. He did not die in want; and he has even left some little fortune for Fanny, which I was to place in your hands.” “And he thought to bribe the old miser to be human! Well--well--well--I will go home.” “Lean on me!” The dog leapt playfully on his master as the latter rose, and Fanny slid from Simon’s arms to caress and talk to the animal in her own way. As they slowly passed through the churchyard Simon muttered incoherently to himself for several paces, and Morton would not disturb, since he could not comfort, him. At last he said abruptly, “Did my son repent?” “I hoped,” answered Morton, evasively, “that, had his life been spared, he would have amended!” “Tush, sir!--I am past seventy; we repent!--we never amend!” And Simon again sunk into his own dim and disconnected reveries. At length they arrived at the blind man’s house. The door was opened to them by an old woman of disagreeable and sinister aspect, dressed out much too gaily for the station of a servant, though such was her reputed capacity; but the miser’s affliction saved her from the chance of his comment on her extravagance. As she stood in the doorway with a candle in her hand, she scanned curiously, and with no welcoming eye, her master’s companions. “Mrs. Boxer, my son is dead!” said Simon, in a hollow voice. “And a good thing it is, then, sir!” “For shame, woman!” said Morton, indignantly. “Hey-dey! sir! whom have we got here?” “One,” said Simon, sternly, “whom you will treat with respect. He brings me a blessing to lighten my loss. One harsh word to this child, and you quit my house!” The woman looked perfectly thunderstruck; but, recovering herself, she said, whiningly-- “I! a harsh word to anything my dear, kind master cares for. And, Lord, what a sweet pretty creature it is! Come here, my dear!” But Fanny shrunk back, and would not let go Philip’s hand.