In a state little, if at all, short of distraction¹, Sir Henry Ashwoode threw himself from his horse at Morley Court. That resource which he had calculated upon with absolute certainty had totally failed him; his last stake had been played and lost, and ruin in its most hideous² aspect stared him in the face.

 

Spattered from heel to head with mud—for he had ridden at a reckless speed—with a face pale as that of a corpse³, and his dress all disordered, he entered the great old parlour, and scarcely knowing what he did, dashed the door to with violence and bolted it. His brain swam so that the floor seemed to heave and rock like a sea; he cast his laced hat and his splendid peruke (the envy and admiration⁴ of half the petit maîtres in Dublin) upon the ground, and stood in the centre of the room, with his hands clutched upon the temples of his bare, shorn head, and his teeth set, the breathing image of despair. From this state he was roused by some one endeavouring to open the door.

 

"Who's there?" he shouted, springing backward and drawing his sword, as if he expected a troop of constables⁵ to burst in.

 

Whoever the party may have been, the attempt was not repeated.

 

"What's the matter with me—am I mad?" said Ashwoode, after a terrible pause, and hurling⁶ his sword to the far end of the room. "Lie there. I've let the moment pass—I might have done it—cut the Gordian knot, and there an end of all. What brought me here?"

 

He stared about the room, for the first time conscious where he stood.

 

"Damn these pictures," he muttered; "they're all alive—everything moves towards me." He flung himself into a chair and clasped his fingers over his eyes. "I can't breathe—the place is

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