you may command me to the utmost (au l'enfer)” -He procured his detonators; piloted the cabs; and grounded them in a paddock beyond the city. Preliminaries adjusted, Emile stepped mechanically to the pebble. He grasped the pistol. The calumniator or contaminator of Grace Evrett dilated, till it had been impracticable to miss him. Saintly, ere the signal, severed Emile's watchribbon. Villiers' second indignantly expedited his principal. But, biased by the report—he, about to violate his Maker's will-he, murder a brother-mortal-he, punish (repair he could not) enormity by enormity-Villiers discharged the tube aloft "To your own conscience I consign you," he cried, "and God's judgment !" A chaise had stopt, outside. A female staggered across the field. A methodic prig, spyingabout, gingerly followed. "Oh, my son! my son!" sobbed Lady Saintly upon her honorable scion's neck—" safe from the snare of the fowler! -thou'st avoided the devices of the wicked!" And, embracing the filial prop, "Oh," she exclaimed vigorously, half-twirling her to Villiers Wrath, or Charity, for it !-Neither. A more interesting effusion "Oh, you-you-monster!" A maternal flow of tears! No. 9.-Who scampers into ancient pastures? -Villiers-Alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim, The roads, the woods, the land-marks were the same he might have quitted them but yesterday. If the year's age was rather later, the gathering dusk veiled the diversity. His conveyance dismissed, he asked for Camell. "And such is of the Social Code's provisions! who shall unravel its wildering intricacies? The peer whose front is red with homicide inherits petting while the self-denier of the same enor mity will acquire no iota of appreciation—and his proscription be uncommuted!”— Lord Clevedon passed the ante-room. "What! Do I not behold a known face?" "Known perhaps too well, my lord," said Emile. "Every welcome!" said the Earl, cordially. "You'll lodge with us-though"-and a paleness overspread him-"our house is of the dullest now." "I'm so undetermined, that your lordship""My dear boy"-admitting, then repressing, a frown-he somewhat reservedly subjoined, "we shall be more alone in my closet." "My lord, excuse me. I must be off, the moment I have had talk with Camell." "Emile you're much altered. You're worn. You're ill. Why this haste? Stir not, at least, to-night." To-night or never!" cried Villiers, insanely.— "Travel, my lord," he added, "must plead for my discomposure." "Well," said the Earl, "if, as I surmise, your return concerns Dalyell, I would observe (lest you be rudelier undeceived), that his harshness yet subsists; though—unless marred by precipitance -he may relent” "Indeed ?" said Villiers, apathetic." My notoriety has not incensed him more?" : "There, is what I can't fathom it, he never alludes to the original cause of rupture, only, rules him. But your mention about the Evretts was imprudent, till removal of the prior impediment.-As for the rest"-he struggled with himself—" to me, you shall ever be as of old: would to God, a change were fallen on none of us!" Though distempered, Villiers could not forbear reverencing the Earl's obvious affliction. "My lord," he cried, "I had not wept a sister more sincerely! But our mourning should be less for the Lady Isabel than for ourselves, excluded the holy peace that she experiences, and bidden to a lengthier sojourn in this waste of crimes and crosses." "I murmur not for her," the Earl replied, "her heart had broken, by this. And mine almost-Emile! you've a surprise before you. You've-in Camell"-he could not continue. "For heaven's sake-what?" cried Villiers, eagerly. "You must soon discern-why should I suppress it ?-Yes! he's an infidel! He disowns religion, and derides morality." "What!—my lord ?-impossible !-Camell ?" Clevedon kept silence: in the sadness of truth. "Does your lordship," said Villiers, haughtily, after a pause" (your news astounds me)-Does your lordship trace such indoctrination? Does your lordship (for I am aware of my general standing) imply my liability to the onus ?” Clevedon's glance steadied. "I cannot blame your query-I gave myself to be misconstrued. The implication were bootless your opportunities too few-your correspondence too rare." "Let me rectify," said Villiers, disdainfully— "rectify your lordship on my over-habituation to accusals to consider them worth rejoinder.-By heaven! I'm more grieved for Camell than to resent your lordship's injuriousness!" "My fears," conceded the Earl, "may astound as much. They indicate Captain Herbert." "Lord Clevedon would be lenient!-His correspondence might, in sooth, have been as detrimental as mine!" Correspondence? You cushion his living, the last six months, wholly in this country-and mostly here." |