O Lilburne, spare me--spare me. I meant to be an honest man. I--I--"
And Robert Beaufort sobbed. Lilburne looked at him in scornful surprise.

"Do not fear that I shall ever think worse of you; and who else will
know it? Do not fear me. No;--I, too, have reasons to hate and to
fear this Philip Vaudemont; for Vaudemont shall be his name, and not
Beaufort, in spite of fifty such scraps of paper! He has known a man--my
worst foe--he has secrets of mine--of my past-perhaps of my present: but
I laugh at his knowledge while he is a wandering adventurer;--I should
tremble at that knowledge if he could thunder it out to the world as
Philip Beaufort of Beaufort Court! There, I am candid with you. Now
hear my plan. Prove to Arthur that his visitor is a convicted felon, by
sending the officers of justice after him instantly--off with him again
to the Settlements. Defy a single witness--entrap Vaudemont back to
France and prove him (I think I will prove him such--I think so--with
a little money and a little pains)--prove him the accomplice of William
Gawtrey, a coiner and a murderer! Pshaw! take yon paper. Do with it as
you will--keep it-give it to Arthur--let Philip Vaudemont have it, and
Philip Vaudemont will be rich and great, the happiest man between earth
and paradise! On the other hand, come and tell me that you have lost
it, or that I never gave you such a paper, or that no such paper ever
existed; and Philip Vaudemont may live a pauper, and die, perhaps, a
slave at the galleys! Lose it, I say,--lose it,--and advise with me upon
the rest."

Horror-struck, bewildered, the weak man gazed upon the calm face of the
Master-villain, as the scholar of the old fables might have gazed on
the fiend who put before him worldly prosperity here and the loss of
his soul hereafter. He had never hitherto regarded Lilburne in his true
light. He was appalled by the black heart that lay bare before him.

"I can't destroy it--I can't," he faltered out; "and if I did, out of
love for Arthur,--don't talk of galleys,--of vengeance--I--I--"

"The arrears of the rents you have enjoyed will send you to gaol for
your life. No, no; don't destroy the paper."

Beaufort rose with a desperate effort; he moved to the bureau. Fanny's
heart was on her lips;--of this long conference she had understood only
the one broad point on which Lilburne had insisted with an emphasis that
could have enlightened an infant; and he looked on Beaufort as an infant
then--O