But the cup of his sorrow was not yet full.
No. 13.
THE LAST LOOK AT JOHN BRISTOW.
A terrible change came over the unhappy and ill-fated nobleman about this time. Long years of toil could not have aged him as his sorrow did. His hair grew white, his face became livid, his eyes lost their wonted fire; and albeit he bore himself bravely under the deep affliction which had fallen upon him, it was easy to see that he was no longer the same man. A shadow had fallen upon him and his, and he was constrained to suffer in silence.
Reginald was interred in the family vault. A noble scion of the house of Ethalwood was gathered to his fathers with all the pomp and ceremony usually accorded to the illustrious dead.
His only remaining son, Herbert, was now his father’s chief, and indeed it might be said only, care. He had no other prop for his declining years, no other to look to as the direct inheritor of his title and estates.
His anxiety about his son, Herbert, was almost pitiful to witness; he was for ever by his side, watching with a jealous care.
It was pretty generally understood by all that the young man was acutely sensible of the loss he had sustained by the death of his brother, Reginald, to say nothing of the mystery in which the fate of his sister was enveloped.
He durst not make any inquiries about her, and even if he had he would have been none the wiser, seeing that nobody knew aught about her. He therefore mourned the loss of each in silence.