follow me. I shall walk on. Be quick, and
make no noise."

A faint streak of light was just beginning to appear in the east, when
the heretofore master of that lordly mansion went out into a world which
held for him no other home. ACCIDENT, as short-sighted mortals name
events controlled by no human will, decided whither he should direct his
course from London. He had called at his lawyer's--the already mentioned
"nephew of old Harris"--determined to communicate his discovery to him,
perhaps with some faint hope of learning that the entail had been in
some way set aside, before Sir Thomas had ventured to make his sister's
son his heir. Mr. Decker was not in his rooms, and sitting down to wait
for him he took up mechanically the morning paper that lay on his table.
The first thing on which his eye rested was the advertisement of a steam
packet about to sail from Liverpool for America.

"America; the very place for me. I shall meet no acquaintances there,"
was the thought which flashed through his mind. Another glance at the
paper of the day and hour of the packet's sailing, an examination of his
watch, an impatient look from the window up and down the street, and
again he mused, "I have not a moment to spare, and if I wait for Decker
I may be kept for hours, and so lose the packet; and why should I wait?
Have I not seen the deed? This indecision is folly."

The result of these reflections was a note rapidly written to Mr.
Decker, stating his discovery of the deed of entail, his consequent
surrender of all claim to the property to Edward Maitland, and his
determination to quit England immediately. All arrangements respecting
the settlement of his claims on the estate, and the claims of the
present proprietor upon him, he left to Sir Edward and Mr. Decker,
empowering the latter to receive and retain for his use and subject to
his order, whatever, on such a settlement, should appertain to him.

This note was left on Mr. Decker's table, and in one hour after leaving
his office Horace Maitland was advancing to Liverpool with the rapidity
of steam. The packet waited but the arrival of the train in which he was
a passenger, to leave the shores of England. With what bitterness he
watched those receding shores, while memory wrote upon his bare and
bleeding heart the record of joys identified with them, and fading like
them for ever from his life, let each imagine for himself, for to such
emotions no language can do justice.