Dimden Park--a spot which had been hated and avoided by Lord Dewry ever since it fell into his possession, on account of its many memories--some painful in themselves, some painful in their associations--had, by this time, not alone been revisited by its master, but had been occupied by him, with a part of his general household, as if for the purpose of longer residence. Such a state of things had been in no degree contemplated by the peer, either when Manners left him, or when he himself terminated his conversation with the gipsy boy who had become his prisoner; but another conversation had succeeded with another person, to whose chamber we must now follow.

The first object of Lord Dewry being to get the gipsy Pharold into his power--trusting to his previously arranged schemes to work his will with him when he had him there--it was natural that he should turn his whole efforts to accomplish his capture before he attended to anything else. The moment, however, that all the means had been employed for that purpose which circumstances permitted, his attention instantly returned to the plans which he had concerted in order to prove the object of his hatred and his fear guilty of the crime imputed to him, when he should be ultimately taken. The execution of these plans materially depended upon Sir Roger Millington; and for his safety and recovery the peer's next aspirations were consequently raised. As soon, then, as he had dismissed the affair of the boy, and had seen the treacherous scoundrel he thought fit to employ for the purpose of inveigling the gipsy to his destruction set out upon his errand, Lord Dewry turned his steps towards the chamber of the wounded man, sincerely grieved for the accident which had happened to him, and most anxious concerning its ultimate result. Calculating, however, with nice acumen, the irritable selfishness of sick people, he trusted not to the personal vexation which he really felt to give his air and countenance the appearance of grief and sympathy; but as he walked slowly up the stairs, he thought over every point of the part he was to play, in order to cover his individual motives from the eye of the wounded man, and make him believe that sincere interest in his fate and sufferings was the sole emotion which affected his friend and benefactor.

At the door of the chamber to which Sir Roger had been conveyed, the peer paused for a moment; and then laying his hand upon the lock, turned it, and entered with as noiseless a step as possible. The windows were darkened; but there was still enough light in the room for the eye to distinguish the table covered with surgical instruments and bloody bandages, and all those appliances and means for saving life which man so strangely combines with the most skilful and persevering activity in taking it. There was the bed, too, and the half-drawn curtains, and the gentleman in black, sitting by the bolster, while a young prim assistant walked about on tiptoe, for the soothing dose or the cooling drink. A deep groan was sounding through the room as the peer entered; and although he was, and always had been, a man of nerve, without any corporal terror at the thought either of pain or death, there was something in that sound, and all the accessory circumstances around, that made a sort of shudder pass over his frame. It were difficult to guess in what feelings that shudder took its rise. It might be, alone, the natural repugnance of the human heart to anguish and dissolution--it might be that he thought of his son--it might be that he remembered his brother, for there were chords of association between the fate of each, and the situation of the man he came to visit, which, like the strings of the Eolian harp, might well be moved to a thousand vague and melancholy sounds by the slightest breath that stirred them.

He advanced, however, lightly towards the bed, and stood by the chair, whence the surgeon rose as he approached, ere the wounded man was aware of his presence. Sir Roger Millington was lying on his left side, with his face turned away, and his right hand cast over the bed-clothes; and it was not difficult, from the slow clenching of his hand, and the rocking motion of his head, to see the intense agony he suffered. The peer paused, and gazed for a moment with some emotion--not, indeed, without a mingling of better feelings--compassion, and sympathy, and disinterested grief, such as he had not known for many years. It was better than all the acting in the world; and when Sir Roger, whom no persuasion of the surgeon could induce to lie still, turned round with the quick and irritable movement of high fever and excessive pain, he saw the peer standing by him, with an expression of sincere sorrow which could not be mistaken.

A groan and a fearful contortion followed the change of position; but when the first agony was over, he looked pleased to see the countenance of Lord Dewry; and said, in a voice wonderfully strong and firm, considering his situation, "Your lordship is very kind--I am badly hurt, I am afraid--those accursed gipsies took too good an aim--damn me, if I do not think the shot must have been red hot, it gives one such torture. I have been wounded before, but never felt anything like this. Do you think I shall die, my lord, ey?"

"Heaven forbid," cried the peer, sitting down; "on the contrary, I trust the very pain you suffer evinces that you are in no danger; for I have always heard that mortal wounds are generally the least painful. Is it not so, Mr. Swainstone?"

"Yes, exactly so, my lord," replied the surgeon, who would probably have confirmed anything on earth that the peer said to sooth his patient. "I had told the gentleman so before your lordship arrived."

"You never told me so," cried Sir Roger, looking up at him angrily.

"Yes, indeed, sir, I told you that I hoped and trusted you would recover," answered the surgeon; "and one of my reasons for thinking so was the very pain you suffer; for, as his lordship very justly and wisely observes, wounds which--"

"But that damned parson," cried Sir Roger, "told me I should certainly die--a foul-mouthed, old, hooded crow!"

"What parson?" demanded the peer, in some surprise and dismay at the very idea of Sir Roger Millington being brought in contact in his dying hours with any one who might lead him on to dangerous disclosures; "what parson does he mean?"

"Oh, only good Dr. Edwards, my lord, the rector," answered the surgeon. "He came to give the gentleman religious consolation; but he did not exactly say that he would certainly die. He said that he would certainly die at some time; and that even, if he were spared at present, it would be better for him to turn his thoughts to serious things, so that, if he recovered, the wound might prove salutary to his mind at least."

"Yes, yes; but he thought, and he meant me to think, too," cried Sir Roger, "that I was dying, and that I could not recover. I knew well enough what he meant--the canting old crow; but I'll live, curse me if I do not, if it be but to pay those hellish gipsies for this torture to which they have put me. I beg your pardon, my lord, for being somewhat violent; but I am in agony, perfect agony."

"I grieve most deeply and sincerely, my dear friend, to see you suffer so much," answered the peer; "and I will take care that no such fanatical irritation be intruded upon you again. Dr. Edwards is a very good and well-intentioned man, I dare say; but I will not have a sick and wounded friend tormented for any rector on the face of the earth. In the mean time, however, I trust that this state of anguish is not likely to be of long endurance. What do you think, Mr. Swainstone? Can nothing be done to alleviate it?"

"I have done as much as I could, my lord, to effect that purpose," answered the surgeon, with a very significant shrug of the shoulders; "and I doubt not, in a few hours, the gentleman will feel the pain begin to subside."

"That is the best news I have heard from you yet, doctor," said the wounded man. "But do you not think you can extract the ball? I do not believe I shall be easier as long as that remains in me, burning like a coal."

"O yes, you will," answered the surgeon; "and it is necessary to let the first irritation subside, before I make the attempt again. Were I to try it now, it might increase all you suffer, and prolong it, perhaps, for many hours."

"Then you shall not touch it, depend upon that," cried Sir Roger; "I suffer quite enough already."

"In the mean time, Mr. Swainstone," demanded the peer, "let me inquire whether a little quiet conversation with a friend is likely to injure your patient; for I would even deny myself the pleasure of remaining with him, though I much desire it, if you thought it would prove in any degree hurtful."

"Not in the least, my lord," answered the surgeon; "a little cheerful and interesting conversation, such as your lordship's must always be, would, most likely, withdraw his mind from himself, and rather do him good than otherwise."

"Then I will relieve you in your attendance upon him for half an hour," rejoined the peer: "and your assistant can wait in the next room, in case Sir Roger may want any surgical aid. But, remember," he added, in a louder tone, "in case I do not see you again, I beseech you to give your whole time and attention up to my friend here, and shall esteem it the greatest favour that any one can confer upon me, if you bring him safely and speedily through this unfortunate affair."

The surgeon bowed; and promising to do his best, proceeded to quit the apartment with his assistant. The peer then, suddenly seeming to remember something, followed into the anteroom, and, closing the door, beckoned him back. "I wish to know, Mr. Swainstone," he said, in a low but emphatic tone, "your real opinion of my friend's case. You said just now that the pain would subside in a few hours: do you think that likely to be really the case? for I see that you have spoken under some restraint."

"It will certainly be the case, my lord," replied the surgeon, gravely; "but only from the coming on of mortification, which cannot be long ere it occurs."

"Good God! then you think he will die?" cried the peer, in real alarm.

"I do think so, my lord," answered the surgeon, "without there existing in my mind one hope of being able to prevent it. The fact is this, my lord: the ball entered his right side; and passing directly through the muscles of the back, was only stopped by the articulations of the ribs and the vertebrae, both of which have been so much fractured and injured, that there is neither any possibility of extracting the ball, nor any chance of its remaining there innocuous, as is sometimes the case."

"Then how long do you think life may be protracted?" asked the peer, anxiously.

"It is impossible to say to a day or two, my lord," answered the surgeon. "It may be over in a week; and, on the contrary, he may linger ten days or a fortnight."

"Then you do not think that there is any chance of immediate dissolution?" demanded Lord Dewry.

"None, none whatever, my lord," replied the surgeon. "All hemorrhage has ceased long. First mortification will ensue, and then--"

"Spare me the description," said the peer; "but tell me, in case of its being necessary to transact any business of importance with this unfortunate gentleman, when do you think will be the moment in which it can best be done?"

"Why, I should say, in the beginning of the mortification," the surgeon replied. "All his faculties will be clear and active, and the great bodily pain which he is now suffering will have abated."

"Well then, Mr. Swainstone," rejoined Lord Dewry, "I shall trust you to give me notice of the precise moment at which you judge it expedient that this poor gentleman's declaration, on oath, regarding the transactions in which he has suffered, should be taken down. At the same time, let me caution you not to alarm him, or suffer him to be alarmed, by the thought of death; but keep his spirits up, as far as possible, till it shall become absolutely necessary to let him know that all hope is past."

Thus saying, the peer returned into the room of the wounded man; and the surgeon withdrew, wondering who Sir Roger Millington could be, towards whom the cold and proud Lord Dewry displayed so much courtesy and warm regard.

The peer, in the meantime, approached the bed of the sufferer with a more cheerful countenance; and assured him, in answer to some rather anxious questions, that the real opinion of the surgeon was more favourable than he had even expected. "I have given orders, too," added Lord Dewry, "that no more fanatics be admitted to you. There are a crowd of those weak fools about the country, who haunt sick-rooms; and very often, by depressing the mind and spirits, cause those persons to die who would otherwise have recovered."

"Oh, I'll not die for any of them," answered Sir Roger; "I'll live to have revenge on those gipsies. They marked me out especially; and I will live long enough to show that, though I was so badly hurt, I could mark them too, and remember them to their cost."

"Did you see Pharold, then, among them?" demanded the peer, eagerly. "Was it he who fired the shot?"

"I saw Pharold plainly," answered Sir Roger; "and can swear that he was among them. So can the man that held me up in his arms, after I was wounded; for he pointed him out to me, and I will swear to him anywhere."

Joy glistened in the eyes of the peer while he listened. He had had doubts, he had had apprehensions, lest the testimony of his keeper against the gipsy should remain unsupported by other authority; and he had not left unremarked Harvey's implication that some of the other persons present differed with him in their account of the affair. But the assertion of Sir Roger Millington was conclusive; as he well knew, from his own former experience as a lawyer, what an effect the dying declaration of a murdered person always has upon a jury.

During the last twenty-four hours he had sometimes doubted whether he had or had not somewhat too intricately complicated his plans, in his eagerness to snatch at every thing which gave an additional chance of security; but now he congratulated himself that he had acted as he had done, and fancied that if he confidently and boldly pursued them, his mind was sufficiently acute to guide each of the schemes he had engaged in to the same great end and object,--the ensuring his own security by crushing those who could destroy it.

He now felt armed at all points. By the transactions of the preceding day he could prove the impossibility of his having committed the crime which he believed that Pharold would cast back in his teeth; and from the events of the preceding night he felt secure that if the gipsy should even be cleared of the murder of his brother and of his son, the last charge, in regard to the violence in Dimden Park, would be made good against him, and lay his dangerous lips in the silence of the grave. But in his eagerness to secure this advantage beyond the power of fate, Lord Dewry somewhat outran discretion. Without giving either himself or Sir Roger time to pause, he exclaimed, eagerly, "Will it not be better, my dear Sir Roger, at once to make a declaration, upon oath, of your recollections concerning the affair of last night?"

Sir Roger Millington looked at him suspiciously. "Do you think me dying, or do you not. Lord Dewry?" he demanded; "for if I am not dying, but likely to recover, I shall have plenty of time to make the declaration when I am not in such pain, or give the viv voce evidence, which is much better in a court of justice. So let me know the truth, my lord."

Lord Dewry saw that it was in vain to hope he would make the declaration he desired unless he believed himself to be dying; but the peer had a keen knowledge of human nature, and saw all the dangers which would attend the disclosure of his real state to Sir Roger Millington. He knew that men who have confronted the chance of death a thousand times, and, if one may use the expression, have bearded "the lean, abhorred monster" in his most angry moods, will writhe and flutter like a scared bird when he has got them in his inevitable grasp, and when they know that they cannot escape. He knew that these are the moments "that make cowards of us all;" and he feared lest some lingering notions of crime, and repentance, and another world should tempt Sir Roger Millington to an endeavour towards atoning past errors, by the confession of all those evil designs which were still in their passage between the past and the future, between the revocable and the irretrievable; and he would not have risked the chance for a world. He saw, however, that he had already created a doubt which might be dangerous; but, he extricated himself dexterously.

"God forbid, my dear Millington," he said, "that anything should be even likely to prevent your giving evidence when the trial of these gipsies comes on; but my only reason for wishing you to make the declaration was, that it might be produced at once before the magistrates, whom I shall request to meet here to-morrow or the day after, either to take measures for pursuing the villains vigorously, if they have not been arrested before that time, or to investigate the matter if they have, which I trust may be the case, as I have already set half the county on their track. Now what I wish is, that this Pharold may be committed directly; and you know that among a number of country magistrates there is always some prating, troublesome fellow, who throws difficulties in the way; and in this instance, it must be remembered, some of the people did not recognise Pharold, so that your evidence is of vital importance."

"Let them come to me," said Sir Roger, vehemently--"let them come to me, and I will give such evidence as would hang him half a dozen times over. I should like to be but a quarter of an hour in the same room with the scoundrel with two good small-swords. Only to think, my lord, of me--who have made the daylight shine through many a pretty man as one would wish to see--being hurt in this way by a stinking yellow fox of a gipsy, that is only fit to be hunted down by a good pack of hounds!"

"I trust we shall catch him," said the peer, who saw that it was vain to press the wounded man any further upon the subject of the declaration.

"Catch him!" cried Sir Roger, who was working himself up into a state of vehement excitement--"catch him! you cannot miss catching him, if you take proper means. By Jupiter, if you miss him, I'll undertake, for a small sum, to catch him myself as soon as I am well; or rather, I should say, catch the whole of them, for curse me if I know which of them it was that fired the shot."

"Indeed!" cried Lord Dewry; "I am sorry for that; I thought you were certain it was Pharold."

"I daresay it was," answered the knight, "for I saw him standing in front, when they picked me up. It was either he himself or a young fellow who stood near, and who bullied a great deal beforehand. But as those that bully never act, I dare say it was Pharold himself."

"I wish to heaven your recollection would enable you to swear that it was Pharold," said the peer in a low but distinct voice.

"Oh, I can swear that it was he who did it, to the best of my belief," answered Sir Roger, who, notwithstanding all his sufferings, could not but feel, that, in the peer, he had obtained a friend whom it might be inexpedient to lose, and whose care and attention, under his existing circumstances, might well make some impression upon him, although he even did doubt the motives which produced such conduct--"I can swear it was he who did it, to the best of my belief," he repeated, with some emphasis on the last words; and then added, in the peevish tone of pain, "You seem to have a goodly dislike towards this Pharold, my lord."

The peer did not wish, of course, that his personal hatred to Pharold should be too apparent, even to those whom he employed as tools; but he still less wished that that personal hatred should be so far without plausible motive as to lead men to turn their thoughts towards remote causes, in order to seek out some probable reason for such persisting enmity. Nor, indeed, was a sufficient motive wanting; for the terrible news he had heard the night before from Colonel Manners had awakened feelings towards the gipsy which, though blending with ancient hatred, were yet sufficiently powerful in themselves to stand forth, even in his own mind, as the great incentive to his designs against Pharold, as one great stream, joining others, mingles its waters with theirs, and gives its name to all.

"I have good cause to hate him," he said, bending down over the wounded man, with the expression of all his dark and bitter feelings frowning unrestrained upon his brow--"I have good cause to hate him, Sir Roger--judge if I have not, when I tell you that his hand has not only been dipped in my brother's blood, but also in the blood of my only son."

He spoke in a low and agitated voice: but Sir Roger caught his meaning distinctly; and, with an involuntary movement of real horror, started up upon his elbow. He fell back again instantly, with a groan of agony; and the big drops rolled from his forehead. The peer paused for a few minutes, seeing that the sudden movement had renewed all the sufferings of the wounded man: but he had yet much more to say, and when the knight had in some degree recovered, he began again with expressions of sympathy and kindness:--"I am sorry to see you suffer so terribly," he said: "you seemed easier just now; and I was in hopes that the change for the better, which the surgeon prognosticated, was already coming on."

"I was better, I was better," said the knight, peevishly; "but that cursed start that you made me give, by telling me about your son, has torn me all to pieces again. You should not tell one such things so hastily."

"Were my son out of the question," replied Lord Dewry, with every appearance of frankness and sincerity--"had this Pharold never shed one drop of my kindred blood, I would pursue him and his tribe to the last man, for what they have made you suffer."

There is no calculating, however, the turns which the irritability of sickness will take; and whether Lord Dewry overcharged the expression of his regard or not, Sir Roger murmured to himself, in a tone too indistinct for the peer to distinguish his words,--"I dare say you think so, now that you have your own purposes to answer too--I am not to be blinded. Well, my lord," he continued aloud, somewhat apprehensive, perhaps, that the peer's present kindness might render him the obliged person, instead of the conferer of the obligation, and thus deprive him of many a profitable claim for the future--"well, my lord. I am very much obliged to you for your kindness; but I trust you will not allow my having suffered, in an attempt to serve you, so greatly as to render me for the time incapable of doing all that I could wish--I hope that you will not allow this fact, I say, to alter your lordship's kind intentions in my favour."

The peer understood very clearly, although Sir Roger was rendered peevish and somewhat imprudent by pain and sickness, yet that with habitual rapacity he now wished to tie him down to the fulfilment of all that had been promised on the former evening, lest the opportunity should slip, and the gipsy be convicted of other crimes by other means. Confiding, however, in the assurance of the surgeon, that the unhappy knight must die, he felt that he could be liberal as the air in promises, without any dangerous result; and he therefore replied at once, "Fear not, fear not, Sir Roger; not only will I do all that I said, when you were first kind enough to give me your assistance, but it shall not be my fault if I do not find means to do more. Set your mind, therefore, at ease upon the subject, and do not allow any thoughts for the future to give you apprehension, or delay your recovery. Since, however, you have spoken of the subject yourself, there are some things in those papers which we were looking over last night which I should much like to see again. Have you them here?"

Sir Roger, however, was not to be deceived; and his present views were directly opposed to those which he perceived or suspected in his noble companion. In the first arrangement of the affair, indeed, when he had been suddenly raised from apprehensions of the most gnawing want to hopes of competence and ease, when he believed that the peer could not ultimately act without him, and that he had it always in his power to enforce, by a few gentle hints of publicity, the performance of all that had been promised, he would have given the papers out of his own hands without fear. Under those circumstances, too, the peer had thought it better that the knight should keep them, that their production might take place more naturally.

Now, however, the position of each was changed. Lord Dewry looked upon Sir Roger as a dying man, whose life could not be protracted to the completion of all they designed, and who might be worked upon by the fear of death, or the irritability of sickness, to take a very different view of the life he was leaving, from that which he had hitherto entertained. Sir Roger, on his part, saw that, tied down to a bed of pain, through, a long and tedious convalescence, no opportunity could possibly be afforded him of superintending and directing the proceeding in which he had been engaged; and, therefore, that his great hold upon the peer was to be found in the papers which they had altered together. Both, therefore, wished to possess them; and Sir Roger, in the apparently casual question of Lord Dewry, perceived at once the object he proposed. "No, my lord," he answered, somewhat abruptly, "I have them not with me; I left them at your house, at Dewry Hall. I wish to God I had them with me."

The peer was somewhat startled by the eagerness of his tone; for it is impossible for men to confederate in villany without being more or less suspicious of each other. "Cannot I find them for you. Sir Roger?" he demanded. "If you will intrust me with the key of your valise, I will bring them over with me to-morrow."

A grim smile checkered the expression of pain on the countenance of the wounded man, and he replied, "Your lordship is very good; but as I shall require a number of things contained in my valise, I think it would be better if your lordship were to have the goodness to order some of your servants to send me over every thing which I left in the apartment assigned me at Dewry Hall."

"Certainly, certainly," answered the peer, who saw that he must press the matter no farther--"certainly, it shall be done this very night. But do you not think, Sir Roger," he continued, with renewed apprehension lest the unhappy man, if left unwatched by his own eye, should discover his real situation, and be persuaded to make inconvenient confessions--"do you not think, Sir Roger, that you yourself might bear removal to the hall? I do not like your remaining in this damp old house, which has not been inhabited for many years, and in which there is but little that can render you comfortable, during your convalescence. If you could bear the motion--"

"Impossible, my lord," replied Sir Roger sharply; "I wonder you do not see that I can bear no motion at all. This place will do very well: I have lain in worse quarters; and if you will order my valise to be sent, it is all I want. To tell the truth," he added, "I am somewhat tired, and am afraid that to speak much more would injure me."

"Then far be it from me," replied the peer, "to prolong our conversation, Sir Roger. I shall take care that everything that circumstances admit be done for your accommodation, and that you be not again teased by our fanatical rector, as you were this morning."

There was a degree of anger in his tone which, had it not been repressed by many a potent consideration, might have flashed forth in a very different manner; but it was still sufficiently perceptible to make the wounded man add some deprecatory sentences, which the peer received in good part, and left the room. As soon as he was gone, Sir Roger Millington placed his hand over his eyes, and gave way to thoughts of a very mixed, but all of a melancholy character.

"His compassion and his regard," he thought, his mind turning to the crafty man who had just left him--"his compassion and his regard are all false and affected, that is clear enough. To think of his wishing to move me fourteen or fifteen miles in this terrible state! I should like to know what his object is. He has some deep object, beyond doubt. Can he be afraid of my betraying him? Perhaps he may. His schemes are villanous ones enough, that is certain: but he knows that if I were to peach, I should lose the annuity from him, and get nothing from any one else; so he cannot be afraid of that." Then came a long interval of confused and rambling speculations on the motives of the peer, which had something of delirium in their vague and unconnected whirl; but then a more terrible image rose before the mind of the sick man. "Can he think me dying?" he asked himself. "Can the surgeon have told him that I am dying? No, I won't believe it. I feel as strong as ever, notwithstanding all this pain! I cannot be dying! No, no, I will live to revenge myself upon those cursed gipsies. Doctor," he continued aloud, as the surgeon now re-entered the room, "are you sure that you are not deceiving me about my condition? Are you sure that I am not in danger?"

The surgeon was a good but an easy-tempered man; not indifferent to religion; but still not very certain, at all times, in regard to the precise line of conduct which it dictated. Although he thought it wrong, as a general principle, to depress the spirits of a patient, by telling him his danger, yet he had conceived that the clergyman had done but his duty, as a man of religion, in letting the wounded knight know what he, as a medical man, had thought it his duty to conceal. The arguments and injunctions of the peer, however, coming in support of his own opinion, he maintained his first assertion to Sir Roger, telling him that, although it was impossible to answer for contingencies, and that he could not exactly tell what might be the ultimate result of his wound till he had examined it on the following day, yet he saw no reason whatever to apprehend any immediate danger.

With this assurance Sir Roger satisfied himself, and passed a feverish and painful night, in murmurs at the agony he suffered, in curses and imprecations upon the whole race of gipsies, and in vague speculations upon the motives and views of Lord Dewry, in his conduct of that morning. At times his mind seemed to ramble a little; and he would mutter vague sentences, referring to many a different object, which would excite both the attention and wonder of the medical man, and make him believe that his patient wanted the aid of religion more than he had imagined at first. When spoken to, however, his replies became instantly clear and precise, and all his faculties appeared again as perfect as ever.

In the mean while, the peer, after leaving such directions as the circumstances and his own particular plans required, placed himself once more in his carriage, and returned to his usual abode; but he determined that on no consideration should the wounded man be left longer in Dimden House without his presence. "Those meddling priests," he thought, "think themselves privileged to obtrude and to persevere in their obtrusion; but I do not think the rector will presume to set his foot within the doors of Dimden while I am there, without my especial desire; and if he do, he shall soon be disposed of. I dare say, however, that Sir Roger himself said enough to prevent his speedy return; but that surgeon, that Swainstone, is a weak fellow, and I will trust nothing to circumstances."

There were other things, however, to be accomplished, which required no small skill and cunning to bring about; but the mind of Lord Dewry was all activity and eagerness, now that the strife had actually commenced, and that he felt that the struggle between him and the only witness of the crime he had committed was so far advanced that it could only end in the destruction of one or the other. There was no more hesitation now--there was no more fear or doubt--there was none of that wavering between many feelings and many emotions. He had plunged in, and he was resolved to make his way through. The news of his son's death had decided him; and the burning longing for revenge went hand in hand with all his other motives. He had hesitated at the first step; but that irretrievable first step was now taken, and he did not regret it. He had chosen his path; he had begun the contest, and his whole thoughts and mind were bent to take advantage of every circumstance in order to terminate it in his own favour.

Again and again, as the carriage rolled on, he revolved in his own mind the various means that could be used to induce the dying man to make such a declaration of what he had witnessed during the affray in Dimden Park as would give an irresistible grasp of Pharold; and yet how accomplish this purpose without letting Sir Roger know that he was dying, and that the crimes to which he was making himself a party would soon appear in the dreadful account against his disembodied spirit? It was a difficult task, and yet he thought he could accomplish it, if he were for any long time present in the knight's sick-room; but on another point he saw, and saw with a glow of triumph, that he could turn the very refusal of the papers, which for a moment he had considered as detrimental, to the very best account.

Although it was late, and he had not dined, yet he ordered the carriage, ere it proceeded home, to pass through the neighbouring village, and stop at the vicarage. It was an honour which the proud, cold, irreverent peer had seldom paid to the poor minister of a religion that condemned him; and with some surprise the vicar beheld him enter his little study. But the struggle in which he was engaged, like all other struggles of base interest, whether they be for the purposes of political ambition or of private avarice, was one that mightily tamed pride, and rendered coldness warm and affable. He was anxious to buy golden opinions from all sorts of men: and although he had a further purpose at present in view, he addressed the clergyman with that sort of courtesy which his situation prompted him to use towards every one whose word might be of value in the opinion of the world.

"My dear sir," he said, "I come to you for the purpose of requesting a favour." The vicar, who neither loved nor approved the man who spoke to him, answered coldly that he should be happy to do any thing to serve his lordship; and the peer proceeded to explain.

"The fact is," he said, "that last night, in a terrible deer-stealing affray, which took place at Dimden, a poor friend of mine was severely wounded, and is not expected to live from hour to hour. Among his baggage, which remains here at the hall, he tells me that there are papers of great importance; and, indeed, he wished me to bring them to him; but as his mind is not itself, and his faculties wander from time to time, I do not conceive I should be justified in placing papers of importance at his disposal. At the same time, of course, I cannot presume to examine them, and I wish much to seal them up in your presence, if you have time to get into my carriage with me, and accompany me to the hall. It is for this purpose that I have now called here as I passed from Dimden on my way home."

The vicar thought that the matter might have been more simply arranged; but as there was nothing in the peer's request which was unreasonable, he consented to accompany him; and in few minutes they were at the door of the mansion. Leaving the cook to fret over his delayed ragouts, the peer instantly ordered sealing-wax and lights to be brought; and, accompanied by the clergyman, proceeded to the apartments which Sir Roger Millington had occupied for so short a time, and in which various articles of apparel were still lying about. The valise, however, firmly locked, was in one corner of the room; and what was still more pleasing in the sight of the peer, there appeared on one of the tables a small portable letter-case, in which, beyond all doubt, the knight had placed the papers which were of so much consequence to Lord Dewry.

Lord Dewry took the wax, and bidding the servant who brought it hold the taper, he sealed first the letter-case, and then the valise, and requested the vicar to do the same with his own seal. "I am induced," he said, in a frank tone, "to take all these precautions, by a conversation which I had with my poor friend this morning, in which he spoke of these things as of the most vital importance. It might be the mere rambling of delirium, but it might be more correct; and, therefore, as this caution costs me nothing but the wax, and you, my dear sir, nothing but the loss of a few minutes' time--though I know your time is valuable--I thought it best not to neglect a line of conduct, which I might regret not having pursued hereafter."

"I think your lordship is quite right," replied the vicar, placing his seal also on the cases. "In matters of worldly prudence, and in our religious duties, where there is any thing to be done which may produce good, and cannot produce evil, to neglect it is, in the one case, a folly, and in the other, a sin."

The peer repressed the sneer that began to curl his lip; and, perhaps, felt at his heart that the good man's words were true, though through life he had neglected the rule they taught. He then bade the servant close up the apartment, and lock the door, till the death of the unhappy knight should render the things that it contained the property of others; and descending the stairs with the vicar, he begged that he would favour him by remaining to dinner, which was about to be placed upon the table. The clergyman replied that he had long dined; and in answer to the offer of the peer's carriage to take him back to the vicarage, he answered that he would rather walk.

"He is stern and repulsive!" thought the peer as the clergyman left him: but there was still a lingering gleam of better feeling, which occasionally lighted up his darkened heart, and he added, almost instantly, and aloud; "but he is loved by the poor, and he is a good man; and I would rather have such a one near me than a pampered voluptuary."

"Sir!" said the servant, who was standing by.

"Pshaw! nothing!" replied the peer, and walked back to his dressing-room.

Early the next morning he returned to Dimden, where he received, as we have seen, the tidings which Colonel Manners sent him of the security of his son, which, though it poured some balm into his heart, came too late to effect any change in his purposes against the gipsy.