lity
untried in the effort to save his friend, well-nigh the saddest part
of the whole business to him was the realisation that the prisoner had
not only broken those custom laws (of which Sir Adrian himself
disapproved as arbitrary) but also, as he had been warned, those other
laws upon which depend all social order and security; broken them so
grievously that, whatever excuses the philosopher might find in heat
of blood and stress of circumstances, given laws at all, the sentence
could not be pronounced otherwise than just.

And so, with an aching heart and a wider horror than ever of the cruel
world of men, and of the injustices to which legal justice leads, Sir
Adrian left London to hurry back to Lancaster with all the speed that
post-horses could muster. The time was now drawing short. As the
traveller rattled along the stony streets of the old Palatine town,
and saw the dawn breaking, exquisite, primrose tinted, faintly
beautiful as some dream vision over the distant hills, his soul was
gripped with an iron clutch. In three more days the gallant heart,
breaking in the confinement of the prison yonder, would have throbbed
its last! And he longed, with a desire futile but none the less
intense, that, according to that doctrine of Vicarious Atonement
preached to humanity by the greatest of all examples, he could lay
down his own weary and disappointed life for his friend.

Having breakfasted at the hotel, less for the necessity of food than
for the sake of passing the time till the morning should have worn to
sufficient maturity, he sought on foot the quiet lodgings where he had
installed his wife under Rene's guard before starting on his futile
quest. Early as the hour still was--seven had but just rung merrily
from some chiming church clock--the faithful fellow was already astir
and prompt to answer his master's summons.

One look at the latter's countenance was sufficient to confirm the
servant's own worst forebodings.

"Ah, your honour, and is it indeed so. _Ces gredins!_ and will they
hang so good a gentleman?"

"Hush, Renny, not so loud," cried the other with an anxious look at
the folding-doors, that divided the little sitting-room from the inner
apartment.

"Oh, his honour need have no fear. My Lady is gone, gone to Pulwick.
His honour need not disquiet himself; he can well imagine that I would
not allow her to go alone--when I had been given a trust so precious.
No, no, the old lady, Miss O'Donoghue,