n't interfere with
you;" and away Jack walked.

The man cleared the mud out of his eyes, as well as he could, and looked
after him with a powerful suspicion that in Jack he saw the very cause
of his mortal mishap: but, somehow or other, his immersion in the not
over limpid stream had wonderfully cooled his courage, and casting one
despairing look upon his begrimed apparel, and another at the last of
the stragglers who were pursuing Sir Francis Varney across the fields,
he thought it prudent to get home as fast he could, and get rid of the
disagreeable results of an adventure which had turned out for him
anything but auspicious or pleasant.

Mr. Chillingworth, as though by a sort of impulse to be present in case
Sir Francis Varney should really be run down and with a hope of saving
him from personal violence, had followed the foremost of the rioters in
the wood, found it now quite impossible for him to carry on such a chase
as that which was being undertaken across the fields after Sir Francis
Varney.

His person was unfortunately but ill qualified for the continuance of
such a pursuit, and, although with the greatest reluctance, he at last
felt himself compelled to give it up.

In making his way through the intricacies of the wood, he had been
seriously incommoded by the thick undergrowth, and he had accidentally
encountered several miry pools, with which he had involuntarily made a
closer acquaintance than was at all conducive either to his personal
appearance or comfort. The doctor's temper, though, generally speaking,
one of the most even, was at last affected by his mishaps, and he could
not restrain from an execration upon his want of prudence in letting his
wife have a knowledge of a secret that was not his own, and the
producing an unlooked for circumstance, the termination of which might
be of a most disastrous nature.

Tired, therefore, and nearly exhausted by the exertions he had already
taken, he emerged now alone from the wood, and near the spot where stood
Henry Bannerworth and his friends in consultation.

The jaded look of the surgeon was quite sufficient indication of the
trouble and turmoil he had gone through, and some expressions of
sympathy for his condition were dropped by Henry, to whom he replied,--

"Nay, my young friend, I deserve it all. I have nothing but my own
indiscretion to thank for all the turmoil and tumult that has arisen
this morning."

"But to what possible cause can we att