"We were not bidden to withdraw," said his gentle companion; "why not
rejoin our parent, now that time has been given to understand the subject
which so evidently disturbed his mind?"

Content, at length, yielded to this opinion. With that cautious
discretion which distinguishes his people, he motioned to the family to
follow, in order that no unnecessary exclusion should give rise to
conjectures, or excite suspicions, for which, after all, the
circumstances might prove no justification. Notwithstanding the subdued
manners of the age and country, curiosity, and perhaps a better feeling,
had become so intense, as to cause all present to obey this silent
mandate, by moving as swiftly towards the open door as a never-yielding
decency of demeanor would permit.

Old Mark Heathcote occupied the chair in which he had been left, with
that calm and unbending gravity of eye and features which were then
thought indispensable to a fitting sobriety of spirit. But the
stranger had disappeared. There were two or three outlets by which the
room, and even the house, might be quitted, without the knowledge of
those who had so long waited for admission; and the first impression
led the family to expect the re-appearance of the absent man through one
of these exterior passages. Content, however, read in the expression of
his father's eye, that the moment of confidence, if it were ever to
arrive, had not yet come; and, so admirable and perfect was the
domestic discipline of this family, that the questions which the son
did not see fit to propound, no one of inferior condition, or lesser
age, might presume to agitate. With the person of the stranger, every
evidence of his recent visit had also vanished.