tending passions; but his frame gave way, he flung himself upon a couch, and spoke with the wild and broken interjections of a terrible dream. "Life of continual terror!" he exclaimed; "he will seek justice!—I shall be undone !-he must not cross my objects again! Vaughan, Vaughan, what curse fixed you between me and fortune? Why am I exposed to temptations beyond the strength of man to resist! Shame, beggary, all to be cured by one act of self-defence. No more! -life for life!" He clenched his hands, and struck them against his forehead in an agony too bitter to be controlled. Glancing suddenly round, he perceived, to his horror and amazement, the door slightly opened; it closed. Springing forwards, he perceived the figure of Benson stealing down the stairs.

He rushed after him, and dragged him into the room, furious with passion, "Stop, villain-spy!" he exclaimed, "where are you going?-what brought you here ?→ what have you heard?-how dared you steal upon me? I have satisfied your demand. Begone!"

"Am I to go or stay, sir," said Benson, calmly disengaging himself from Courtney's grasp, and looking up in his face with an air of cool inquiry. Courtney was baffled by his look. "Scoundrel, what have you heard?""Nothing, sir." 66 Nothing," said 16*

VOL. II.

Courtney. "Well, and right, there was nothing to hear. But I have been ill of late," he tottered again to the couch, saying, as he sank upon it, "I am feverish, Benson; I should not be surprised if I were to go mad!"

The menial cast a keen glance, which had something of triumph in it at his fallen master. "If, sir, you have any burden on your mind, I am faithful," said he, in a whisper. "Unburden myself, and to you!" retorted Courtney, with a smile of supreme contempt; "Unburden myself to you;" he burst into a paroxysm of laughter; then suddenly breaking it off, and fixing a strong glare on his listener's countenance, "You,-whom a guinea would bribe to betray me at any time! I have nothing on my mind.-Begone." Benson was retiring. He was called back. "Captain Vaughan has taken the road to Caversham-he cannot reach it to-night." "I overheard him saying, that he should have some delays on the road, and might complete his journey by late to-morrow evening." "It is very well," said Courtney: "his motions are so rapid, that I must lose no time in writing to him, lest he should again change his residence as quickly as he has left London-leave me now." He hung his. head, and seemed to compose himself to sleep. Benson drew himself up in a sudden

attitude of superiority and scorn, and slowly stalked out of the room.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout,

While's I threat he lives.

I go, and it is done."

Shakspeare.

THE year was declining, and as Vaughan rolled rapidly along the fine roads of Oxfordshire, he might have filled his eye with the alternate beauty of mighty woods wearing their last autumnal tints, and the little pastoral streams swelling into rivers, and rushing through fields and valleys that seemed planned by the very genius of landscape.

But his spirit was wearied and worn out by succession of bitterness. And the sounds of the rustling wind that shook showers of foliage round him, and the general look of pale decay that touched the mountain and the valley, only formed a portion of his saddened feeling, a kind of attendant chime to the progress of a dejected heart from sorrow to the grave.

Some business which he had to arrange at Oxford detained him till the early nightfall of a November day, and when he had lost the glimmer of the town lamps, he pursued his road in total darkness. The night grew stormy, and the road seemed to have been suddenly cleared of all other travellers. Vaughan. wrapped in his cloak, and by custom careless of accidents by flood and field, was revolving the long series of his anxieties; when he found the carriage suddenly checked. He started from his musing. In all the rush of the wind the sound of a low peculiar voice struck his ear. The postboy was evidently struggling or parleying with some one. The night had suddenly grown intensely dark; but Vaughan, with the habits of soldiership, sprang out of the chaise, and felt his way to the horses' heads. At the sound of his voice, a horseman plunged against him, and with an execration discharged a pistol full in his front.

At the flash the horse wheeled round, and burst away into the darkness. Vaughan, in the shock of the moment, could see only that his rider wore a crape, and that the animal was covered with mire and foam. Pursuit was impossible. As to the stoppage of the chaise, the driver could tell him nothing more than that a man, who called himself a London traveller, had been inquiring the

nearest way to Caversham at the Golden Eagle, where they had last changed horses. That he had followed them, and was trying to persuade him, as they reached the foot of the very steepest hill on the road, that he had mistaken his way.

Terror had made the post-boy stop; and the sight of the crape convinced him that the traveller was no other than the famous Tom Castles, who had been the terror of the country, till he was transported seven years before, but who was said to have returned and taken to the Oxford road, now that the gentlemen were coming up to their terms.

This was unsatisfactory enough, and Vaughan strongly suspected that the fluent describer of Tom Castles' achievements knew more about his present enterprise than hè was willing to acknowledge. But there was no resource. He got into the carriage; and his charioteer, possibly to whirl away any opinions unfavourable to his integrity, flogged his steeds into a gallop.

Vaughan tried to compose himself again; but a sudden pang made him writhe. He -found his coat stained with blood; a ball had struck his arm, unfelt in the hurry of the struggle. But the pain grew keener still ; the blood flowed rapidly; and he had but just seen the lights in the avenue of his home, when he fell and fainted.