again that I will be faithful to the charge you have entrusted to your
wretched son! And at this hour I dare ask if there be on this earth one
more miserable and forlorn?"

As words to this effect struggled from his lips, a loud, shrill voice--
the cracked, painful voice of weak age wrestling with strong passion,
rose close at hand.

"Away, reprobate! thou art accursed!"

Philip started, and shuddered as if the words were addressed to himself,
and from the grave. But, as he rose on his knee, and tossing the wild
hair from his eyes, looked confusedly round, he saw, at a short distance,
and in the shadow of the wall, two forms; the one, an old man with grey
hair, who was seated on a crumbling wooden tomb, facing the setting sun;
the other, a man apparently yet in the vigour of life, who appeared bent
as in humble supplication. The old man's hands were outstretched over
the head of the younger, as if suiting terrible action to the terrible
words, and, after a moment's pause--a moment, but it seemed far longer to
Philip--there was heard a deep, wild, ghastly howl from a dog that
cowered at the old man's feet; a howl, perhaps of fear at the passion of
his master, which the animal might associate with danger.

"Father! father!" said the suppliant reproachfully, "your very dog
rebukes your curse."

"Be dumb! My dog! What hast thou left me on earth but him? Thou hast
made me loathe the sight of friends, for thou hast made me loathe mine
own name. Thou hast covered it with disgrace,--thou hast turned mine old
age into a by-word,--thy crimes leave me solitary in the midst of my