'I heard it last night, and the night before that, and the night before that again, under my pillow, shrieking--stifling--two little squeaks, like a caught hare; and I tore the pillows off it--I did; and once I saw it, and it had beautiful black eyes--just like its father--just like a little miniature that used to lie on my mother's table, when I knelt at her knee, before they sent me out "to see life," and Eton, and the army, and Crockford's, and Newmarket, and fine gentlemen, and fine ladies, and luxury, and flattery, brought me to this! Oh, father! father! was that the only way to make a gentleman of your son?--There it is again! Don't you hear it?-- under the sofa cushions! Tear them off! Curse you! Save it!' And, with a fearful oath, the wretched man sent Lancelot staggering across the room, and madly tore up the cushions. A long postman's knock at the door.--He suddenly rose up quite collected. 'The letter! I knew it would come. She need not have written it: I know what is in it.' The servant's step came up the stairs. Poor Bracebridge turned to Lancelot with something of his own stately determination. 'I must be alone when I receive this letter. Stay here.' And with compressed lips and fixed eyes he stalked out at the door, and shut it. Lancelot heard him stop; then the servant's footsteps down the stairs; then the colonel's treading, slowly and heavily, went step by step up to the room above. He shut that door too. A dead silence followed. Lancelot stood in fearful suspense, and held his breath to listen. Perhaps he had fainted? No, for then he would have heard a fall. Perhaps he had fallen on the bed? He would go and see. No, he would wait a little longer. Perhaps he was praying? He had told Lancelot to pray once--he dared not interrupt him now. A slight stir--a noise as of an opening box. Thank God, he was, at least, alive! Nonsense! Why should he not be alive? What could happen to him? And yet he knew that something was going to happen. The silence was ominous--unbearable; the air of the room felt heavy and stifling, as if a thunderstorm were about to burst. He longed to hear the man raging and stamping. And yet he could not connect the thought of one so gay and full of gallant life, with the terrible dread that was creeping over him--with the terrible scene which he had just witnessed. It must be all a temporary excitement- -a mistake--a hideous dream, which the next post would sweep away. He would go and tell him so. No, he could not stir. His limbs seemed leaden, his feet felt rooted to the ground, as in long nightmare. And still the intolerable silence brooded overhead. What broke it? A dull, stifled report, as of a pistol fired against the ground; a heavy fall; and again the silence of death.