A room next the great entrance hall had been prepared; it was all hung
with black and lighted with wax tapers. In the midst stood the two
coffins covered with a black velvet pall.

On the coffin of Miles Trevelyan, the son and heir, I saw a wreath of
flowers. I asked several times who had brought it, but no one seemed to
know.

I do not think that any one at Crown Anstey went to rest that night,
unless it were mademoiselle. There was something in the event to move
the hardest heart.

Father and son had left Crown Anstey so short a time since, full of
health, vigor, strength and plans for the future. They lay there now,
side by side, silent and dead; no more plans or hopes, wishes or fears.
The saddest day I ever remember was the one on which I helped to lay my
two unknown kinsmen in the family vault of the Trevelyans.




CHAPTER IV.


It was all over. The morning, with its sad office, had passed; the
servants had gone back to their work; the blinds were drawn up, and
light once more found its way into the darkened house. The will was read
in the library; the whole of the property, entailed and unentailed, was
left to his only son, Miles, and after him to his heirs. There was