a temper," said Captain Jekyl, calmly;
"Lord Etherington, I trust, acted on very different motives than those
you impute to him; and if you will but listen to me, perhaps something
may be struck out which may accommodate these unhappy disputes."

"Sir," said Tyrrel, sitting down again, "I will listen to you with
calmness, as I would remain calm under the probe of a surgeon tenting a
festered wound. But when you touch me to the quick, when you prick the
very nerve, you cannot expect me to endure without wincing."

"I will endeavour, then, to be as brief in the operation as I can,"
replied Captain Jekyl, who possessed the advantage of the most admirable
composure during the whole conference. "I conclude, Mr. Tyrrel, that the
peace, happiness, and honour of Miss Mowbray, are dear to you?"

"Who dare impeach her honour!" said Tyrrel, fiercely; then checking
himself, added, in a more moderate tone, but one of deep feeling, "they
are dear to me, sir, as my eyesight."

"My friend holds them in equal regard," said the Captain; "and has come
to the resolution of doing her the most ample justice."

"He can do her justice no otherwise, than by ceasing to haunt this
neighbourhood, to think, to speak, even to dream of her."

"Lord Etherington thinks otherwise," said Captain Jekyl; "he believes
that if Miss Mowbray has sustained any wrong at his hands, which, of
course, I am not called upon to admit, it will be best repaired by the
offer to share with her his title, his rank, and his fortune."

"His title, rank, and fortune, sir, are as much a falsehood as he is
himself," said Tyrrel, with violence--"Marry Clara Mowbray? never!"

"My friend's fortune, you will observe," replied Jekyl, "does not rest
entirely upon the event of the lawsuit with which you, Mr. Tyrrel, now
threaten him.--Deprive him, if you can, of the Oakendale estate, he has
still a large patrimony by his mother; and besides, as to his marriage
with Clara Mowbray, he conceives, that unless it should be the lady's
wish to have the ceremony repeated to which he is most desirous to defer
his own opinion, they have only to declare that it has already passed
between them."

"A trick, sir!" said Tyrrel, "a vile infamous trick! of which the lowest
wretch in Newgate would be ashamed--the imposition of one person for
another."

"Of that, Mr. Tyrrel, I have seen no evidence whatever. The clergyman's
certificate is clear--Francis Tyrrel is united to Clara Mowbray in th