Now, I'll go." And, without another word, he was going; at the door he turned:-- "Crimsworth Hall is sold," said he.
"Sold!" was my echo.
"Yes; you know, of course, that your brother failed three months ago ?" "What! Edward Crimsworth ?" "Precisely; and his wife went home to her fathers; when affairs went awry, his temper sympathized with them; he used her ill; I told you he would be a tyrant to her some day; as to him--" "Ay, as to him--what is become of him ?" "Nothing extraordinary--don't be alarmed; he put himself under the protection of the court, compounded with his creditors--tenpence in the pound; in six weeks set up again, coaxed back his wife, and is flourishing like a green bay-tree." "And Crimsworth Hall--was the furniture sold too ?" "Everything--from the grand piano down to the rolling-pin." "And the contents of the oak dining-room--were they sold ?" "Of course; why should the sofas and chairs of that room be held more sacred than those of any other ?" "And the pictures ?" "What pictures?
Crimsworth had no special collection that I know of--he did not profess to be an amateur." "There were two portraits, one on each side the mantelpiece; you cannot have forgotten them, Mr.Hunsden; you once noticed that of the lady--" "Oh, I know! the thin-faced gentlewoman with a shawl put on like drapery .-- Why, as a matter of course, it would be sold among the other things.

If you had been rich, you might have bought it, for I remember you said it represented your mother: you see what it is to be without a sou." I did.

"But surely," I thought to myself, "I shall not always be so poverty-stricken; I may one day buy it back yet .-- Who purchased it?
do you know ?" I asked.
"How is it likely?
I never inquired who purchased anything; there spoke the unpractical man--to imagine all the world is interested in what interests himself! Now, good night--I'm off for Germany to-morrow morning; I shall be back here in six weeks, and possibly I may call and see you again; I wonder whether you'll be still out of place!" he laughed, as mockingly, as heartlessly as Mephistopheles, and so laughing, vanished.
Some people, however indifferent they may become after a considerable space of absence, always contrive to leave a pleasant impression just at parting; not so Hunsden, a conference with him affected one like a draught of Peruvian bark; it seemed a concentration of the specially harsh, stringent, bitter; whether, like bark, it invigorated, I scarcely knew.
A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow; I slept little on the night after this interview; towards morning I began to doze, but hardly had my slumber become sleep, when I was roused from it by hearing a noise in my sitting room, to which my bed-room adjoined--a step, and a shoving of furniture; the movement lasted barely two minutes; with the closing of the door it ceased.

I listened; not a mouse stirred; perhaps I had dreamt it; perhaps a locataire had made a mistake, and entered my apartment instead of his own.

It was yet but five o'clock; neither I nor the day were wide awake; I turned, and was soon unconscious.