"What in the world is Herbert about? He cannot have gone out without bringing us some intelligence. Robert, has Mr. Herbert gone out?" he called loudly to the servant, who was passing the open window. "No, sir," was the reply; "he is still in his room." "Then there will I seek him," he added, impetuously; but he was prevented by the entrance of Herbert himself, and Percy started from him in astonishment and alarm. There was not a particle of colour on his cheek or lips; his eyes burned as with fever, and his lips quivered as in some unutterable anguish. "Read," he said, in a voice so hoarse and unnatural, it startled even more than his appearance, and he placed the letter in his father's hand. "Father, read, and tell them all--I cannot. It is over!" he continued, sinking on a stool at his mother's feet, and laying his aching head on her lap. "My beautiful dream is over, and what is the waking? wretchedness, unutterable wretchedness! My God, my God, Thy hand is heavy upon me, yet I would submit." He clasped his mother's hands convulsively in his, he drooped his head upon them, and his slight frame shook beneath the agony, which for hours he had been struggling to subdue. Mrs. Hamilton clasped him to her bosom; she endeavoured to speak words of hope and comfort. Silence deep and solemn fell over that little party; it was so fearful to see Herbert thus--the gentle, the self-controlled, the exalted Herbert thus bowed down even to the earth; he, whose mind ever seemed raised above this world; he, who to his family was ever a being of a brighter, holier sphere. If he bent thus beneath the pressure of earthly sorrow, what must that sorrow be? His family knew the depth of feeling existing in his breast, which the world around them never could suspect, and they looked on him and trembled. Myrvin raised him from the arms of his mother, and bore him to the nearest couch, and Mrs. Hamilton wiped from his damp brow the starting dew. Tears of alarm and sympathy were streaming from the eyes of Emmeline, and Myrvin resigned his post to Percy, to comfort her. But Ellen wept not; pale as Herbert, her features expressed suffering almost as keen as his, and yet she dared not do as her heart desired, fly to his side and speak the words that love dictated. What was her voice to him? _she_ had no power to soothe. Deep and varied emotions passed rapidly over Mr. Hamilton's countenance as he read the letter which had caused this misery. Percy could trace upon his features pity, sorrow, scorn, indignation, almost loathing, follow one another rapidly and powerfully, and even more violently did those emotions agitate him when the truth was known.