, I own, one
peculiarly unwelcome and displeasing. In the first place, I did not
love to be made a party in a business of the nature of which I was so
profoundly ignorant. Besides, Glanville was more dear to me than
any one, judging only of my external character, would suppose; and
constitutionally indifferent as I am to danger for myself, I trembled
like a woman at the peril I was instrumental in bringing upon him. But
what weighed upon me far more than either of these reflections, was the
recollection of Ellen. Should her brother fall in an engagement in which
I was his supposed adviser, with what success could I hope for those
feelings from her, which, at present, constituted the tenderest and
the brightest of my hopes? In the midst of these disagreeable ideas the
carriage stopped at the door of Tyrrel's Hotel.

The waiter said Sir John was in the coffee-room; thither I immediately
marched. Seated in the box nearest the fire sat Tyrrell, and two men, of
that old-fashioned roue set, whose members indulged in debauchery, as if
it were an attribute of manliness, and esteemed it, as long as it were
hearty and English, rather a virtue to boast of, than a vice to disown.
Tyrrel nodded to me familiarly as I approached him; and I saw, by
the half-emptied bottles before him, and the flush of his sallow
countenance, that he had not been sparing of his libations. I whispered
that I wished to speak to him on a subject of great importance; he rose
with much reluctance, and, after swallowing a large tumbler-full of port
wine to fortify him for the task, he led the way to a small room, where
he seated himself, and asked me, with his usual mixture of bluntness
and good-breeding, the nature of my business. I made him no reply: I
contented myself with placing Glanville's billet doux in his hand.
The room was dimly lighted with a single candle, and the small and
capricious fire, near which the gambler was seated, threw its upward
light, by starts and intervals, over the strong features and deep lines
of his countenance. It would have been a study worthy of Rembrandt.

I drew my chair near him, and half shading my eyes with my hand, sat
down in silence to mark the effect the letter would produce. Tyrrel (I
imagine) was a man originally of hardy nerves, and had been thrown much
in the various situations of life where the disguise of all outward
emotion is easily and insensibly taught; but whether his frame had been
shattered by his exce