"It is terrible--terrible!" ejaculated the Earl. "I need scarcely say, my dear Hazeldine, that you have my most unfeigned sympathy--both you and your mother--in this dreadful affliction. How little we know what a day--nay, an hour--may bring forth!" The Earl had a habit of indulging in mild platitudes, which he enunciated with an air of profundity which almost lent them a touch of freshness. "I left home the bearer of an invitation to you to dine at the Lodge to-morrow, but that, of course, is now out of the question. It will be Agnes's birthday"--Agnes was Miss Winterton--"so her Ladyship is going to ask a quiet half-dozen to dinner, and you were to have been of the number." A glow of satisfaction burnt for a moment in Edward Hazeldine's cheeks. Even at a time like the present he could not help feeling a keen sense of gratification that his name should have been remembered on such an occasion. Might he not accept it, he asked himself, as an augury of the good fortune that would attend him when the time should have come for him to put to Miss Winterton a certain momentous question? As soon as the Earl had gone, Edward's eyes fell on the heap of unopened letters left there from morning. Business must go on whatever happens, and it was with a sense of relief that he endeavored to bring his mind back for a time to the commonplace details of everyday life. He took up the letters one by one, opened them, read them, and his mind took in their contents automatically, but his real mind was back at the Bank--he was gazing again on that ghastly, upturned face, on those sightless eyes into which no light of recognition would ever flash more. Only last night he had been sitting by his father's side, worrying him about the details of a paltry debt of twenty pounds, hardly noticing how ill and careworn he looked, parting from him in his usual off-hand, careless fashion; only last night--and now! There was one letter still left unopened. He took it up and looked first at the address, as he always made a point of doing. There was a familiar look about the writing, and yet he could not call to mind whose it was. Without more ado he tore open the envelope, and then he saw in a moment that the letter inside was in his father's writing. He was startled, to say the least. His father had not written to him since he was a schoolboy, unless it was now and then two lines of invitation to dinner, or on some equally trivial matter. What could he possibly have to say to him now? Before beginning to read the letter, he took up the envelope again and saw that it bore the London post-mark of the day before; then he turned to the signature as if to make sure that it really was his father's writing. Then he drew his chair a little nearer the window and began to read. CHAPTER VIII. MR. HAZELDINE'S LETTER. The following is a copy of Mr. Hazeldine's letter to his son: Oct. 5, 18--, "My Dear Edward,