telling the truth, who will believe him--when the girl was seen running out of his room? and when he refused, on the question being put to him, to say who she was? So, in ignorance of his wife’s last instructions to Amelius--in equal ignorance of the compassionate silence which an honourable man preserves when a woman’s reputation is at his mercy--the wretch needlessly plotted and planned to save his usurped reputation; seeing all things, as such men invariably do, through the foul light of his own inbred baseness and cruelty. He was troubled by no retributive emotions of shame or remorse, in contemplating this second sacrifice to his own interests of the daughter whom he had deserted in her infancy. If he felt any misgivings, they related wholly to himself. His head was throbbing, his tongue was dry; a dread of increasing his illness shook him suddenly. He drank some of the lemonade at his bedside, and lay down to compose himself to sleep. It was not to be done; there was a burning in his eyeballs, there was a wild irregular beating at his heart, which kept him awake. In some degree, at least, retribution seemed to be on the way to him already. Mr. Melton, delicately administering sympathy and consolation to Regina--whose affectionate nature felt keenly the calamity of her aunt’s death--Mr. Melton, making himself modestly useful, by reading aloud certain devotional poems much prized by Regina, was called out of the room by the courier. “I have just looked in at Mr. Farnaby, sir,” said the man; “and I am afraid he is worse.” The physician was sent for. He thought so seriously of the change in the patient, that he obliged Regina to accept the services of a professed nurse. When Mr. Melton started on his return journey the next morning, he left his friend in a high fever. CHAPTER 2 The inquiry into the circumstances under which Mrs. Farnaby had died was held in the forenoon of the next day. Mr. Melton surprised Amelius by calling for him, and taking him to the inquest. The carriage stopped on the way, and a gentleman joined them, who was introduced as Mr. Melton’s legal adviser. He spoke to Amelius about the inquest; stating, as his excuse for asking certain discreet questions, that his object was to suppress any painful disclosures. On reaching the house, Mr. Melton and his lawyer said a few words to the coroner downstairs, while the jury were assembling on the floor above. The first witness examined was the landlady.