and the house without waiting for the servant to open the door.

Utterly overcome by the terrible blow to his hopes, beside himself with
mortification, with his head hanging on his bosom and his eyes bent
staringly on the ground, the poor fellow ran about the streets for a
considerable length of time without knowing what he was about or whither
he was going. At length the stern conviction of want and duty partially
aroused him from his feverish dream, and he walked on rapidly in the
direction of the gate of Borgenhout, till he found himself entirely
alone among the fortifications.

He had no sooner reached this solitary quarter than a terrible conflict
seemed to begin within him; his lips quivered and muttered incoherently,
while his face exhibited a thousand different expressions of suffering,
shame, and hope. After a while he drew forth from his pocket the golden
snuff-box, looked long and sadly on the armorial engravings that adorned
it, and then fell into a reverie, from which he suddenly aroused himself
as if about taking a solemn resolution. With his eyes intently fixed on
the box, he began to obliterate the arms with his knife, as he murmured,
in a voice of tremulous emotion,--

"Remembrancer of my dear and excellent mother, protecting talisman that
has so long concealed my misery and which I invoked as a sacred shield
whenever poverty was on the eve of betraying me, last fragment of my
ancestry, I must bid thee farewell; and--alas! alas!--my own hand must
profane and destroy thee! God grant that the last service thou wilt ever
render me may save us from overwhelming humiliation!"

A tear trickled down his wan cheek as his voice became still; but he
went on with his task of obliteration till every trace of the crest and