s Dorothy.

"The girl must know best," returned Godfrey, evading, whilst at the same
moment he confirmed the question. "He always admired her from a boy. We
have had many disputes, nay downright quarrels, about her beauty. She
was never a great favorite of mine. I admire gentle, not man-like
women."

"He is a scoundrel!" cried the Captain, throwing down his pipe with a
sound that made his daughter start. "He shall never darken my doors
again, and so you may tell him, Mr. Godfrey, from me!"

"This is a severe sentence, but he deserves it!" said Godfrey. "I fear
my father will one day repent that he ever fostered this viper in his
bosom. Yet, strange to say, he always preferred him to me. Report says
that there is a stronger tie between them, but this is a base slander
upon the generous nature of my father. He loved Anthony's mother better
than he did mine; and he loves her son better than he does me."

"Poor lad," said the Captain, warmly grasping his hand, "You have been
unkindly treated among them; and you shall always find a friend and a
father in me."

Godfrey was a little ashamed of his duplicity, and would gladly, if
possible, have recalled that disgraceful scene; but having so far
committed himself, he no longer regarded the consequences; but he
determined to bear it out with the most hardened effrontery.

Whilst the victim of his diabolical art was writhing upon a sick bed
under the most acute mental and bodily pain, the author of his suffering
was enjoying the most flattering demonstrations of regard, which were
lavishly bestowed upon him by the inhabitants of the Lodge. But the
vengeance of Heaven never sleeps, and though the stratagems of wicked
men may for a time prove successful, the end generally proves the truth
of the apostle's awful denunciation: "_The wages of sin is death_."

CHAPTER XII.

Art thou a father? did the generous tide
Of warm parental love e'er fill thy veins,
And bid thee feel an interest in thy kind?
Did the pulsation of that icy heart
Quicken and vibrate to some gentle name,
Breathed in secret at its sacred shrine?--S.M.

Short was the time allowed to Anthony Hurdlestone to brood over his
wrongs. His uncle's affairs had reached a crisis, and ruin stared him in
the face. Algernon Hurdlestone had ever been the most imprudent of men;
and under the fallacious hope of redeeming his fortune, he had, unknown
to his son and nephew, during his frequent