no secrets from me, blurted out the whole story;
asked me what scheming I was after, and what poor unlucky girl I was
going to carry away with the chaise I had ordered, and bribe with the
money I had got from town?

Then the whole secret flashed upon me, that the man I had cherished in
my bosom was going to betray me. I thought at one time of catching the
couple in the act of escape, half drowning them in the ferry which they
had to cross to get to their chaise, and of pistolling the young traitor
before Lady Lyndon's eyes; but, on second thoughts, it was quite clear
that the news of the escape would make a noise through the country, and
rouse the confounded justice's people about my ears, and bring me no
good in the end. So I was obliged to smother my just indignation, and
to content myself by crushing the foul conspiracy, just at the moment it
was about to be hatched.

I went home, and in half-an-hour, and with a few of my terrible looks, I
had Lady Lyndon on her knees, begging me to forgive her; confessing
all and everything; ready to vow and swear she would never make such an
attempt again; and declaring that she was fifty times on the point of
owning everything to me, but that she feared my wrath against the poor
young lad her accomplice: who was indeed the author and inventor of
all the mischief. This--though I knew how entirely false the statement
was--I was fain to pretend to believe; so I begged her to write to her
cousin, Lord George, who had supplied her with money, as she admitted,
and with whom the plan had been arranged, stating, briefly, that she had
altered her mind as to the trip to the country proposed; and that, as
her dear husband was rather in delicate health, she preferred to stay at
home and nurse him. I added a dry postscript, in which I stated that it
would give me great pleasure if his Lordship would come and visit us
at Castle Lyndon, and that I longed to renew an acquaintance which in
former times gave me so much satisfaction. 'I should seek him out,'
I added, 'so soon as ever I was in his neighbourhood, and eagerly
anticipated the pleasure of a meeting with him.' I think he must have
understood my meaning perfectly well; which was, that I would run him
through the body on the very first occasion I could come at him.

Then I had a scene with my perfidious rascal of a nephew; in which the
young reprobate showed an audacity and a spirit for which I was quite
unprepared. When I taxed him with