cend the stairs: he opened the door,
and entered but one pace. Never did human face wear a more fiendish
expression of malevolence and wrath. "Sir Reginald Glanville," he said,
"I thank you heartily. He must have iron nails who scratches a bear.
You have sent me a challenge, and the hangman shall bring you my answer.
Good day, Sir Reginald--good day, Mr. Pelham;" and so saying, he shut
the door, and rapidly descending the stairs, was out of the house in an
instant.

"There is no time to be lost," said I, "order post horses to your
carriage, and be gone instantly."

"You are wrong," replied Glanville, slowly recovering himself. "I must
not fly; it would be worse than useless; it would seem the strongest
argument against me. Remember that if Thornton has really gone to
inform against me, the officers of justice would arrest me long before I
reached Calais; or even if I did elude their pursuit so far, I should
be as much in their power in France as in England: but to tell you the
truth, I do not think Thornton will inform. Money, to a temper like his,
is a stronger temptation than revenge; and, before he has been three
minutes in the air, he will perceive the folly of losing the golden
harvest he may yet make of me for the sake of a momentary passion.
No--my best plan will be to wait here till to-morrow, as I originally
intended. In the meanwhile he will, in all probability, pay me another
visit, and I will make a compromise with his demands."

Despite of my fears, I could not but see the justice of these
observations, the more especially as a still stronger argument than
any urged by Glanville, forced itself on my mind; this was my internal
conviction, that Thornton himself was guilty of the murder of Tyrrell,
and that, therefore, he would, for his own sake, avoid the new and
particularizing scrutiny into that dreadful event, which his accusation
of Glanville would necessarily occasion.

Both of us were wrong. Villains have passions as well as honest men; and
they will, therefore, forfeit their own interest in obedience to those
passions, while the calculations of prudence invariably suppose, that
that interest is their only rule. [Note: I mean "interest" in the
general, not the utilitarian, signification of the word.]

Glanville was so enfeebled by his late excitation, that he besought me
once more to leave him to himself. I did so, under a promise, that he
would admit me again in the evening; for notwithstanding my