Previous to his departure from the Hall, Lester Vane, with the promise of an early return, had quitted it. Colonel Mires was also gone, and Nathan Gomer, with a few words of condolence to Flora, couched in mysterious language, had also disappeared from the house and neighbourhood. So at least both Flora and Mark concluded, for though there had been no leavetaking he was no longer visible in house or grounds. When Mark left, therefore, old Wilton was once more alone with his daughter. By tacit consent, no allusion was made to the subject of their interview in the library. When they met she was pale, silent, and abstracted; he moody and stern. He spoke to her in sharp, short sentences, and she answered him mostly in monosyllables. They scarcely met but at meals; he confining himself, with but few exceptions, to his library, and she to visits to the glen where she had confessed to Hal her love for him, or to the solitude of her own chamber, that she might think only of him and those deep eyes which he had bent upon her so earnestly and so lovingly when last they parted. There were, however, two arrivals in the vicinity of Harleydale after the departure of Mark, in the persons of Colonel Mires and Mr. Chewkle. Both were bent on mischief. The latter, during the little affair of the benefit society, in which his personal liberty was at some hazard, had contracted the vice of hard drinking. He was always addicted to the “glass that inebriates” when it passes the “cheering” point, but it was an occasional indulgence only which had a very passable interval of sobriety; but now he carried a bottle--a bottle which he filled as soon after it was empty as possible, and emptied as soon after it was filled with a celerity remarkable as an accomplishment, but not, as such, commendable. Mr. Chewkle, freely indulging his new habit on his way to Harleydale, arrived at his destination upon the eve of an attack of _delirium tremens_, which fit duly came off on the first evening of his arrival, in the parlour of the village inn, in the presence of a small assemblage of nightly frequenters, and resulted in great damage to visitors and furniture. Mr. Chewkle, who had been engaged for a considerable portion of the evening in emptying glass after glass of brandy and water, suddenly fastened a fiery eye upon a gaunt tailor, who was employed in trying how long he could make a tumbler of gin and water last. In a little while he began to mutter inarticulate words of suppressed rage. Presently he leaped to his feet with an unearthly screech, and made a dash at the tailor. The latter, intensely horrified, threw a summersault, scrambled under the table, and so out at the door.