Every thing that human energy could accomplish had been done to track the murder to its origin; yet not one step had been gained since we sat, that Wednesday afternoon, in the parlor, holding a council over the handkerchief. Young and healthful as I was, I felt my spirits breaking down under my constant, unavailing exertions. The time for my examination came, which could not be unsuccessful, I had so long been thoroughly prepared, but I had lost my keen interest in this era of my life, while my ambition grew torpid. To excel in my profession had become, for the time, quite the secondary object of my life; my brain grew feverish with the harassment of restless projects--the recoil of thwarted ideas. There was not one in the family group (always excepting that unseen and cloistered sufferer) who betrayed the wear-and-tear of our trouble so much as I. James remarked once that I was improved by losing some of my boyish ruddiness--I was "toning down," he said. On another occasion, with that Mephistophiles smile of his, he observed that it must be that I was after the handsome rewards--the sum-total would make a comfortable setting-out for a person just starting in the world. I do not think he wished to quarrel with me; he was always doubly pleasant after any such waspish sting; he was naturally satirical, and he could not always curb his inclination to be so at my expense. In the mean time an impression grew upon me that he was watching me--with what intent I had not yet decided. In all this time I had not seen Eleanor. She had recovered from her illness, so as to be about her room, but had not yet joined the family at meals. I went frequently to the house; it had been a second home to me ever since I left the haunts of my boyhood and the old red-brick mansion, with the Grecian portico, whose massive pillars were almost reflected in the waters of Seneca lake, so close to the shore did it stand--and where my mother still resided, amidst the friends who had known her in the days of her happiness--that is, of my father's life.