o soundly, that the confederates
were easily able to accomplish their inhospitable purpose.

The events of the succeeding days are already known to the reader.
Chiffinch set forward to return to London, with the packet, which it
was desirable should be in Buckingham's hands as soon as possible; while
Christian went to Moultrassie, to receive Alice from her father, and
convey her safely to London--his accomplice agreeing to defer his
curiosity to see more of her until they should have arrived in that
city.

Before parting with Bridgenorth, Christian had exerted his utmost
address to prevail on him to remain at Moultrassie; he had even
overstepped the bounds of prudence, and, by his urgency, awakened some
suspicions of an indefinite nature, which he found it difficult to
allay. Bridgenorth, therefore, followed his brother-in-law to London;
and the reader has already been made acquainted with the arts which
Christian used to prevent his farther interference with the destinies
of his daughter, or the unhallowed schemes of her ill-chosen guardian.
Still Christian, as he strode along the street in profound reflection,
saw that his undertaking was attended with a thousand perils; and the
drops stood like beads on his brow when he thought of the presumptuous
levity and fickle temper of Buckingham--the frivolity and intemperance
of Chiffinch--the suspicions of the melancholy and bigoted, yet
sagacious and honest Bridgenorth. "Had I," he thought, "but tools
fitted, each to their portion of the work, how easily could I heave
asunder and disjoint the strength that opposes me! But with these frail
and insufficient implements, I am in daily, hourly, momentary danger,
that one lever or other gives way, and that the whole ruin recoils on
my own head. And yet, were it not for those failings I complain of, how
were it possible for me to have acquired that power over them all which
constitutes them my passive tools, even when they seem most to exert
their own free will? Yes, the bigots have some right when they affirm
that all is for the best."

It may seem strange, that, amidst the various subjects of Christian's
apprehension, he was never visited by any long or permanent doubt that
the virtue of his niece might prove the shoal on which his voyage should
be wrecked. But he was an arrant rogue, as well as a hardened libertine;
and, in both characters, a professed disbeliever in the virtue of the
fair sex.

CHAPTER XXX