Charlotte flew along the path like a creature flying for life. She paused an instant at the door of the house to beckon me to follow her. The library, the room where her father had gone, was one of those which had been partially dismantled. The pictures had been taken down from the walls, a number of books, which she meant to take with her, collected on the tables. Mr. Campbell had displaced some of the books in order to seat himself in his favourite seat. He looked at her curiously, almost with severity, as she came in anxious and breathless. He was greatly changed. He had been robust and hale, like a tower, when I first entered Ellermore, not yet six months since. Now he had shrunken away into half his size. The coat which he had not worn for months hung loosely upon him; his white hair was long, and he wore a beard, which changed his appearance greatly. All this change had come since the time I parted with him in London, when he told me he was going to join his son Colin; but there was another change more remarkable, which I with awe, and Charlotte with terror, recognised at a glance--the prostration of his mind was gone. He looked his daughter in the face with intelligent, almost sternly intelligent, eyes. “Oh, father, you have wanted me!” Charlotte cried. “I went out for a mouthful of air--I went out--for a few minutes”-- “Why should you not have gone out, Chatty?” he said. “And why was Margaret left in charge of me? I have been ill, I make no doubt; but why should I be watched and spied about my own house?” She gave me a glance of dismay, and then she faltered, “Oh, not that, father--not that!” “But I tell you it was that. She would have hindered my coming downstairs, that woman”--he gave a little laugh, which was terrible to us in the state of our feelings--“and here are you rushing in out of breath, as if there was some cause of fear. Who is that behind ye? Is it one of your brothers--or”-- “It is Mr. Temple, father,” she said, with a new alarm. “Mr. Temple,” he said, with a shade of displeasure passing over his face. Then he recovered himself, and his old-world politeness. “I am glad to see ye,” he said. “So far as I can remember, the house was much disorganised when you were here before, Mr. Temple. You will think we are always out of order; but I’ve been ill, and everything has fallen out of gear. This is not a place,” he added, turning to Charlotte, “to receive a stranger in. What is all this for?” he added, in a sharp tone, waving his hands towards the books, of which some were heaped at his feet on the floor. Once more she made a pause of dismay. “They are some books to take with us,” she said; “you remember, father, we are going away.”