It was a beautiful idea of Plato, and not at all an unchristian idea, that the sins which people have committed during life, and which in this case were termed _manes_, had an existence after death, and were the instruments for punishing those who had committed them--the worm that dieth not, and the fire that cannot be quenched. But had Plato seen into the bosom of Lord Dewry, he would have perceived that his theory might be carried a little further; and that the sins and passions do not wait till we are dead in order to torment their authors, but punish them even in this world, not alone in their consequences, but by their very existence. After having laboured _manibus pedibusque_ to render every member of his sister's household as uncomfortable as possible, the noble lord sunk back in his carriage, with his frame exhausted and his whole heart on fire with that flaming up of painful memories and violent passions which the occurrences we have related had excited. Unfortunately, however, it happens in the wonderful arrangement of this our earthly dwelling-place, that here our evil qualities not only torment ourselves, but others also; and the noble lord might have consoled himself with the certainty that he had, for the time at least, destroyed much tranquillity, and turned joy into bitterness. Of all who suffered on the occasion, Marian de Vaux perhaps suffered most. Mrs. Falkland, for her part, had been very much offended, but she respected her brother too little to permit his ill temper or rudeness to produce any lasting effect upon her. Edward de Vaux believed that his father's present mood would not be long ere it yielded to circumstances; and Colonel Manners, though of course considerably annoyed by what had taken place between Lord Dewry and himself, was not aware of what had passed afterward; and consequently did not enter, as he would otherwise have done most feelingly, into the uncomforts of Mrs. Falkland and his friend De Vaux. But with Marian the matter was different. She knew nothing of all the occurrences of the morning: she had seen her uncle retire on the preceding night, apparently dropping his dispute with Colonel Manners; and she never, for a moment, connected his extraordinary conduct of that day with the disagreement of the preceding evening. In almost all cases of apprehension and uncertainty, the human mind has a natural tendency to connect the occurrence of the moment, whatever it may be, with the principal object of our wishes and our feelings at the time. It matters not whether the two things be as distinct and distant as the sun is from the moon; association in an instant spins a thousand gossamer threads between them, forming a glistening sort of spider-like bridge, scarcely discernible to other people's eyes, but fully strong enough for fancy to run backwards and forwards upon for ever.