I went, but hearing him mutter something as I was closing the door, I turned again. It sounded very like `confounded slut,' but I was quite willing it should be something else.

`Were you speaking, Arthur?' I asked.

`No,' was the answer; and I shut the doom and departed. I saw nothing more of him till the following morning at breakfast, when he came down a full hour after the usual time.

`You're very late,' was my morning's salutation.

`You needn't have waited for me,' was his; and he walked up to the window again. It was just such weather as yesterday.

`Oh, this confounded rain!' he muttered. But after studiously regarding it for a minute or two, a bright idea seemed to strike him, for he suddenly exclaimed, `But I know what I'll do!' and then returned and took his seat at the table. The letter.bag was already there, waiting to be opened. He unlocked it and examined the contents, but said nothing about them.

`Is,there anything for me?' I asked.

`No.' He opened the newspaper and began to read.

`You'd better take your coffee,' suggested I; `it will be cold again.'

`You may go,' said he, `if you've done. I don't want you.'

I rose, and withdrew to the next room, wondering if we were to have another such miserable day as yesterday, and wishing intensely for an end of these mutually inflicted torments. Shortly after, I heard him ring the bell and give some orders about his wardrobe that sounded as if he meditated a long journey. He then sent for the coachman, and I heard something about the carriage and the horses, and London, and seven o'clock to-morrow morning, that startled and disturbed me not a little.

`I must not let him go to London, whatever comes of it,' said I to myself: `he will run into all kinds of mischief, and I shall be the cause of it. But the question is, how am I to alter his purpose?--Well, I will wait awhile, and see if he mentions it.'

I waited most anxiously, from hour to hour; but not a word was spoken, on that or any other subject, to me. He whistled, and talked to his dogs, and wandered from room to room, much the same as on the previous day. At last I began to think I must introduce the subject myself, and was pondering how to bring it about, when John unwittingly came to my relief with the following message from the coachman:--

`Please, sir, Richard save one of the horses has got a very bad cold, and he thinks, sir, if you could make it convenient to go the day after to-morrow, instead of to-morrow, he could physic it today so as--'

`Confound his impudence!' interjected the master.

`Please, sir, he says it would be a deal better if you could,' persisted John, `for he hopes there'll be a change in the weather shortly, and he says it's not likely, when a horse is so bad with a cold, and physicked and all--'

`Devil take the horse!' cried the gentleman--`Well, tell him I'll think about it,' he added, after a moment's reflection. He cast a searching glance at me, as the servant withdrew, expecting to see e token of deep astonishment and alarm; but, being previously prepared, I preserved an aspect of stoical indifference. His countenance fell as he met my steady gaze, and he turned away in very obvious disappointment, and walked up to the fireplace, where he stood in an attitude of undisguised dejection, leaning against the chimney-piece with his forehead sunk upon his arm.