CHAPTER XXXII.
RESTITUTION.
“Rouse to some high and holy work of love,
And thou an angel’s happiness shalt know;
Shalt bless the earth while in the world above;
The work, begun by thee, shall onward go
In many a branching stream and wider flow.”—Carlos Wilcox.
A week after this, Mark Sutherland once more left home for a visit to Mississippi, on business. He went to make a final settlement with Clement Sutherland.
The miserable old man had fallen, almost into a state of idiotcy. He gave up all the title deeds and various documents relating to Rosalie’s estate, but could give little or no information concerning them.
The plantation was sold under the mortgage, and when all was done, and the final accounts cast up, Mark Sutherland found that of all his wife’s splendid fortune, but a paltry two thousand dollars was left.
With this, Mark Sutherland prepared to leave the neighbourhood of Cashmere. But the day that he had fixed for his departure was signalized by a catastrophe that delayed his journey for weeks. It was the dreadful death of St. Gerald Ashley, who, during a fit of mania-a-potu, threw himself from a second story window, and, striking his head upon the iron trellis below, was instantly killed.