to
his carriage with all possible despatch; and at the same moment the
door was opened, and a voice said, not in a threatening but a smooth
accent,--

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to disturb you, but want is imperious;
oblige me with your money, your watches, your rings, and any other
little commodities of a similar nature!"

So delicate a request the squire had not the heart to resist, the
more especially as he knew himself without any weapons of defence;
accordingly he drew out a purse, not very full, it must be
owned,--together with an immense silver hunting-watch, with a piece of
black ribbon attached to it.

"There, sir," said he, with a groan, "don't frighten the young lady."

The gentle applicant, who indeed was no other than the specious Augustus
Tomlinson, slid the purse into his waistcoat-pocket, after feeling its
contents with a rapid and scientific finger.

"Your watch, sir," quoth he,--and as he spoke he thrust it carelessly
into his coat-pocket, as a school-boy would thrust a peg-top,--"is
heavy; but trusting to experience, since an accurate survey is denied
me, I fear it is more valuable from its weight than its workmanship:
however, I will not wound your vanity by affecting to be fastidious. But
surely the young lady, as you call her,--for I pay you the compliment of
believing your word as to her age, inasmuch as the night is too dark
to allow me the happiness of a personal inspection,--the young lady
has surely some little trinket she can dispense with. 'Beauty when
unadorned,' you know, etc."

Lucy, who, though greatly frightened, lost neither her senses nor her
presence of mind, only answered by drawing forth a little silk purse,
that contained still less than the leathern convenience of the squire;
to this she added a gold chain; and Tomlinson, taking them with an
affectionate squeeze of the hand and a polite apology, was about to
withdraw, when his sagacious eyes were suddenly stricken by the gleam
of jewels. The fact was that in altering the position of her mother's
picture, which had been set in the few hereditary diamonds possessed by
the Lord of Warlock, Lucy had allowed it to hang on the outside of her
dress, and bending forward to give the robber her other possessions,
the diamonds at once came in full sight, and gleamed the more invitingly
from the darkness of the night.

"Ah, madam," said Tomlinson, stretching forth his hand, "you would play
me false, would you? Treachery shoul