be permitted to him to look down and read
my motives, will pardon me, I venture to feel assured, this departure
from his injunctions. Whatever the faults which displeased him, they
have been amply chastised. And your son, grown to man, can no longer be
endangered by example, in tending the couch, or soothing the repentance
of his mother.

These words are severe; but you will pardon them in him who gives you
back your child. I shall venture to wait on you in person, with such
proofs as may satisfy you as to the identity of your son. I count on
arriving at Laughton to-morrow. Meanwhile, I simply sign myself by
a name in which you will recognize the kinsman to one branch of your
family, and the friend of your dead husband. J. WALTER ARDWORTH.

CRAVEN HOTEL, October, 1831.

"Well, and are you not rejoiced?" said Lucretia, gazing surprised on
Varney's sullen and unsympathizing face.

"No! because time presses; because, even while discovering your son,
you may fail in securing his heritage; because, in the midst of your
triumph, I see Newgate opening to myself. Look you, I too have had my
news,--less pleasing than yours. This Stubmore (curse him!) writes me
word that he shall certainly be in town next month at farthest, and that
he meditates, immediately on his arrival, transferring the legacy from
the Bank of England to an excellent mortgage of which he has heard. Were
it not for this scheme of ours, nothing would be left for me but flight
and exile."

"A month,--that is a long time. Do you think, now that my son is found,
and that son like John Ardworth (for there can be no doubt that my
surmise was right), with genius to make station the pedestal to
the power I dreamed of in my youth, but which my sex forbade me to
attain,--do you think I will keep him a month from his inheritance?
Before the month is out, you shall replace what you have taken, and
buy your trustee's silence, if need be, either from the sums you have
insured, or from the rents of Laughton."

"Lucretia," said Varney, whose fresh colours had grown livid, "what is
to be done must be done at once. Percival St. John has heard from his
mother. Attend." And Varney rapidly related the questions St. John had
put to him, the dreaded arrival of Captain Greville, the danger of
so keen an observer, the necessity, at all events, of abridging their
visit, the urgency of hastening the catastrophe to its close.

Lucretia listened in ominous and steadfast silence.