While he stood thus, watching, Mr. Scarsdale, innocent of any enemy at the window, put up his hand to his head for a few minutes, as if in suffering, and then, rising, left the room. When he entered again he carried in his hand a mahogany box, bound with brass, not unlike a small desk. Horace, who watched all his proceedings keenly, with excited attention, saw him take out a vial, hold it up to the light, and then measure out for himself a minute dose of the medicine it contained. With eyes that burned through the darkness, Horace watched and noted. The box was left standing by his father's side on the table--where had he brought it from? The young man watched and waited, shivering for long hours, till Mr. Scarsdale's time for retiring came. Then he followed eagerly with his eyes the ghostly figure which glided out of the room, with the box under one arm. The light reappeared a few minutes after in the window of Mr. Scarsdale's bedroom, into the secrets of which he had no power of spying. Then he wandered away blindly over the invisible heather, feeling nothing of the pricks that caught him on every side, insensible to the fresh night breezes blowing about his cheeks, unthinking where he went. When the morning came he could have fancied that he had slept there, so profound was his miserable preoccupation. But he had not slept there. The other man within him had struck out resolutely across the night, and gained shelter in a roadside public-house, from whence it was, refreshed and resolute, that he now came. That same afternoon Horace once more essayed an entrance at Marchmain. Peggy received him with a suspicious face, but thrust him into the kitchen with a haste and force which betrayed to Horace that, as once before, her master was out, and everything propitious for him. He asked the question hurriedly. "What does the like of you want here, Mr. Horry, two days running?" said the startled woman; "and what's your business if he's out or in? I tauld ye last time, and ye know what came o't. It's no' your meaning that you came to see _him_, like a dutiful son?" "No, Peggy; but only to look for something I want in my old room. I confess I got frightened yesterday," said Horace, with a grim, and somewhat tremulous smile. "I had no desire to meet him, fierce and furious as he used to be, or polite, which is worse. I ran away: but to-day you will surely let me go upstairs?" "And what for," said Peggy, steadily fixing her eyes on his face, "did you throw _yon_ napkin in the fire?" Horace grew pale in spite of himself. "A napkin? Did I throw it in the fire? I was not aware of it," he said, with all the boldness he could muster. "However, let me go upstairs." Peggy looked at him, and shook her head. "Ye'll be a-going and rummaging again," she said, with a voice of grieved uncomprehension. She had brought him up, and her heart warmed to him, unlovable as he was.