scanty data. One thing, indeed, he learned from the
passing of that evening, which was, that home and home happiness was
lost to him henceforth without Emily Hastings.

The following day saw him early in the saddle, and riding away as if
some beast of the chase were before him. Indeed, man's love, when it is
worth any thing, has always smack of the hunter in it. He cared not for
highlands or bypaths--hedges and ditches offered small impediments.
Straight across the country he went, till he approached the end of his
journey; but then he suddenly pulled in his rein, and began to ask
himself if he was a madman. He was passing over the Marshall property at
the time, the inheritance of Emily's mother, and the thought of all that
she was heir to cooled his ardor with doubt and apprehension. He would
have given one half of all that he possessed that she had been a
peasant-girl, that he might have lived with her upon the other.

Then he began to think of all that he should say to Sir Philip Hastings,
and how he should say it; and he felt very uneasy in his mind. Then he
was angry with himself for his own sensations, and tried philosophy and
scolded his own heart. But philosophy and scolding had no effect; and
then cantering easily through the park, he stopped at the gate of the
house and dismounted.

Sir Philip was in this time; and Marlow was ushered into the little room
where he sat in the morning, with the library hard by, that he might
have his books at hand. But Sir Philip was not reading now; on the
contrary, he was in a fit of thought; and, if one might judge by the
contraction of his brow, and the drawing down of the corners of his
lips, it was not a very pleasant one.

Marlow fancied that he had come at an inauspicious moment, and the first
words of Sir Philip, though kind and friendly, were not at all
harmonious with the feeling of love in his young visitor's heart.

"Welcome, my young friend," he said, looking up. "I have been thinking
this morning over the laws and habits of different nations, ancient and
modern; and would fain satisfy myself if I am right in the conclusion
that we, in this land, leave too little free action to individual
judgment. No man, we say, must take law in his own hands; yet how often
do we break this rule--how often are we compelled to break it. If you,
with a gun in your hand, saw a man at fifty or sixty paces about to
murder a child or a woman, without any means of stopping the blow