"I
promise?"--"I will."

Without another word, but trusting implicitly to the promise which had
been given to him, Sir Francis Varney produced a small key from his
pocket, and unlocked with it a padlock which confined the chains about
the prisoner.

With ease, Charles Holland was then enabled to shake them off, and then,
for the first time, for some weeks, he rose to his feet, and felt all
the exquisite relief of being comparatively free from bondage.

"This is delightful, indeed," he said.

"It is," said Sir Francis Varney--"it is but a foretaste of the
happiness you will enjoy when you are entirely free. You see that I have
trusted you."

"You have trusted me as you might trust me, and you perceive that I have
kept my word."

"You have; and since you decline to make me the promise which I would
fain have from you, to the effect that you would not mention me as one
of the authors of your calamity, I must trust to your honour not to
attempt revenge for what you have suffered."

"That I will promise. There can be but little difficulty to any generous
mind in giving up such a feeling. In consequence of your sparing me what
you might still further have inflicted, I will let the past rest, and as
if it had never happened really to me; and speak of it to others, but as
a circumstance which I wish not to revert to, but prefer should be
buried in oblivion."

"It is well; and now I have a request to make of you, which, perhaps,
you will consider the hardest of all."

"Name it. I feel myself bound to a considerable extent to comply with
whatever you may demand of me, that is not contrary to honourable
principle."

"Then it is this, that, comparatively free as you are, and in a
condition, as you are, to assert your own freedom, you will not do so
hastily, or for a considerable period; in fact, I wish and expect that
you should wait yet awhile, until it shall suit me to say that it is my
pleasure that you shall be free."

"That is, indeed, a hard condition to man who feels, as you yourself
remark, that he can assert his freedom. It is one which I have still a
hope you will not persevere in.

"Nay, young man, I think that I have treated you with generosity, to
make you feel that I am not the worst of foes you could have had. All I
require of you is, that you should wait here for about an hour. It is
now nearly one o'clock; will you wait until you hear it strike two
before you actually make a movement to leave this