Early in the morning, Squire Mordaunt went to Douglas Dale's room. He found him stretched upon the bed in his clothes. He had made no change in his dress, and had evidently intended to prolong his vigil until the morning, but nature had been exhausted, and in spite of himself Douglas? Dale slept. His old friend stole softly from the room, and cautioning the household not to permit him who must now be regarded as their master to be disturbed, he went out, and proceeded to the search. Douglas Dale did not awake until nine o'clock, and then, starting up with a terrible consciousness of sorrow, and a sense of self-reproach because he had slept, he found Squire Mordaunt standing by his bed. The good old gentleman took the young man's hand in silence, and pressed it with a pressure which told all. They laid the disfigured dead body of him who but yesterday had been the beloved and honoured master of the house in the library, where he had received the ineffectual warning of the gipsy. It was while Douglas Dale was contemplating the pale, still features of his brother, with grief unutterable, that a servant tapped gently at the door, and called Mr. Mordaunt out. "'Niagara' is come home, sir," said the man. "He were found, just now, on the lower road, a-grazing, and he ain't cut, nor hurt in any way, sir." "He's dirty and wet, I suppose?" "Well, sir, he's dirty, certainly; and the saddle is soaking; but he's pretty dry, considering." "Are the girths broken?" "No, sir, there's nothing amiss with them." "Very well. Take care of the horse, but say nothing about him to Mr. Dale at present." The visitors at Hallgrove Rectory had received the intelligence which Sir Reginald Eversleigh had communicated to them with the deepest concern. Arrangements were made for the immediate departure of the Grahams, and of Mrs. Mordaunt and her daughters. The squire and Sir Reginald were to remain with Douglas Dale until the painful formalities of the inquest and the funeral should be completed. Douglas Dale was not a weak man, and no one more disliked any exhibition of sentiment than he. Nevertheless, it was a hard task for him to enter the breakfast-room, and bid farewell to the guests who had been so merry only yesterday. But it had to be done, and he did it. A few sad and solemn words were spoken between him and the Mordaunts, and the girls left the room in tears. Then he advanced to Lydia Graham, who was seated in an arm-chair by the fire, still, and pale as a marble statue. There were no tears in her eyes, no traces of tears upon her cheeks, but in her heart there was angry, bitter, raging disappointment--almost fury, almost despair. Douglas Dale could not look at her without seeing that in very truth the event which was so terrible to him was terrible to her also, and his manly heart yearned towards the woman whom he had thought but little of until now; who had perhaps loved, and certainly now was grieving for, his beloved brother.