ess had become more intelligent and earnest, to Him from whom
no bolts and no bars can exclude the voice of the human heart.

CHAPTER XIII.

"In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit."--VIRGIL.

[On thee the whole house rests confidingly.]

Lord Lilburne, seated before a tray in the drawing-room, was finishing
his own solitary dinner, and Dykeman was standing close behind him,
nervous and agitated. The confidence of many years between the master
and the servant--the peculiar mind of Lilburne, which excluded him from
all friendship with his own equals--had established between the two
the kind of intimacy so common with the noble and the valet of the old
French regime, and indeed, in much Lilburne more resembled the men of
that day and land, than he did the nobler and statelier being which
belongs to our own. But to the end of time, whatever is at once vicious,
polished, and intellectual, will have a common likeness.

"But, my lord," said Dykeman, "just reflect. This girl is so well known
in the place; she will be sure to be missed; and if any violence is
done to her, it's a capital crime, my lord--a capital crime. I know they
can't hang a great lord like you, but all concerned in it may----"

Lord Lilburne interrupted the speaker by, "Give me some wine and hold
your tongue!" Then, when he had emptied his glass, he drew himself
nearer to the fire, warmed his hands, mused a moment, and turned round
to his confidant:--

"Dykeman," said he, "though you're an ass and a coward, and you don't
deserve that I should be so condescending, I will relieve your fears
at once. I know the law better than you can, for my whole life has been
spent in doing exactly as I please, without ever putting myself in the
power of LAW, which interferes with the pleasures of other men. You are
right in saying violence would be a capital crime. Now the difference
between vice and crime is this: Vice is what parsons write sermons
against, Crime is what we make laws against. I never committed a crime
in all my life,--at an age between fifty and sixty--I am not going to
begin. Vices are safe things; I may have my vices like other men: but
crimes are dangerous things--illegal things--things to be carefully
avoided. Look you" (and here the speaker, fixing his puzzled listener
with his eye, broke into a grin of sublime mockery), "let me suppose you
to be the World--that cringing valet of valets, the WORLD! I should say
to you this, 'My d