He whom we have called throughout this book Henry Langford, had twice gone forth, at his father's desire, to see what was taking place without, and he now sat, in the cool grey of the dawn, beside the couch of the Earl, as he lay obtaining snatches of brief and troubled slumber. As Langford so sat, and gazed upon him, the natural feelings of a son's heart towards a father would have way. The blood of kindred stirred within him, and he felt that he was his son. But still as he gazed, the image of his dead mother rose up before his sight, and all the bitter wrongs that she had suffered made his heart sad, and brought the tears into his eyes. He thought of her as he had known her in his youth, still exquisitely lovely, though touched by the withering hand of sorrow. He thought of her as he had known her in later days, fading rapidly away, like a flower broken and trampled under foot by some heedless passer-by. He thought of her as he had seen her on the bed of death, with every worldly hope at an end, and with no thought nor care but of the heaven to which her steps were bent, and of his own future fate and happiness on earth. Her words, almost the last which she ever spoke, still rang in his ears; the promise she had exacted from him, never to give up the endeavour to establish her honour and purity, and the injunction which she had likewise laid upon him, if his father ever did him injustice, to forgive and love him for her sake. Henry felt that he did forgive him; but he felt, too, that there was another and a greater Judge whose forgiveness was needed; a judge not less merciful, indeed, but one not moved by human passions and affections; and as he thought of all that had been done by him to whom he owed his being--of all the dark deeds of other years--the fierce unruly passions which had remained unextinguished even to that very night, the scene of his father's suffering, the prospect of big death became awful, trebly awful to the eyes of his son.