unhappy woman would have proved a sufficient
recommendation; nor was he likely to have enquired whether her malady
might not be infectious, or to have made any of those other previous
investigations which are sometimes clogs upon the bounty or hospitality
of more prudent philanthropists. But to interest him yet farther, Mr.
Touchwood informed him by letter that the patient (not otherwise unknown
to him) was possessed of certain most material information affecting a
family of honour and consequence, and that he himself, with Mr. Mowbray
of St. Ronan's in the quality of a magistrate, intended to be at the
Manse that evening, to take her declaration upon this important
subject. Such indeed was the traveller's purpose, which might have been
carried into effect, but for his own self-important love of manoeuvring
on the one part, and the fiery impatience of Mowbray on the other,
which, as the reader knows, sent the one at full gallop to Shaws-Castle,
and obliged the other to follow him post haste. This necessity he
intimated to the clergyman by a note, which he dispatched express as he
himself was in the act of stepping into the chaise.

He requested that the most particular attention should be paid to the
invalid--promised to be at the Manse with Mr. Mowbray early on the
morrow--and, with the lingering and inveterate self-conceit which always
induced him to conduct every thing with his own hand, directed his
friend, Mr. Cargill, not to proceed to take the sick woman's declaration
or confession until he arrived, unless in case of extremity.

It had been an easy matter for Solmes to transfer the invalid from the
wretched cottage to the clergyman's Manse. The first appearance of the
associate of much of her guilt had indeed terrified her; but he scrupled
not to assure her, that his penitence was equal to her own, and that he
was conveying her where their joint deposition would be formally
received, in order that they might, so far as possible, atone for the
evil of which they had been jointly guilty. He also promised her kind
usage for herself, and support for her children; and she willingly
accompanied him to the clergyman's residence, he himself resolving to
abide in concealment the issue of the mystery, without again facing his
master, whose star, as he well discerned, was about to shoot speedily
from its exalted sphere.

The clergyman visited the unfortunate patient, as he had done frequently
during her residence in his v