that might clear up the cause or the direction of her flight. This conjecture was presently converted into an apparent certainty by the report of the peasants, Bill Coomb and Teddy Chubb, who declared that in their return from Somerton fair they had met her hurrying towards that town in an open chaise driven by an officer. Paul Mapletoft, too, on being closely questioned, for he had taken no notice of the previous hubbub occasioned by her disappearance, recollected that he had a few days before lent her a sum of money, although she had refused to explain the purpose for which she wanted it. It was now taken for granted that she had obtained this supply to facilitate her present flight, or to secure the means of future indulgence with her new admirer; a base and fraudulent action that seemed to form the climax of her misconduct. Walter, who of course remained in confinement, solemnly declared that he knew not what was become of her, and participated fully in the general astonishment, though not in the indignation, for his confidence in Hetty's honour and fidelity remained unshaken, and he trusted her speedy return would satisfy others as well as himself as to the motives of her temporary absence. Her own family, equally in the dark, were filled with surprise and dismay at the tidings of her elopement; and many tongues were loud in reprobating the heartless and unprincipled girl who could desert and defraud her benefactors at such a trying moment, when her friend Edith was visited by afflictions that threatened to derange her faculties, and her quondam lover, Walter, was lying under sentence of death. In the midst of the complicated calamities that pressed thus heavily upon the inmates of Orchard Place, no measure was neglected that promised a chance, however feeble, of affording relief to their misery. Many signatures had been obtained to the petition to the King for a mitigation of the sentence, and Mr. Shelton undertook, for the Squire was hardly to be trusted in any matter of business, to travel night and day until he arrived in London, and saw it delivered into the Monarch's own hand. To this journey he was influenced by several considera tions. Alarmed more than he chose to express at the responsibility his family had incurred in harbouring Forester, and not choosing to place himself in the power of such a faithless adventurer as Seagrave, his knowledge of James's character suggested to him that he would have a much better chance of safety and pardon by frankly confessing what he had done, and throwing himself on the royal clemency, than by trusting either to the probabilities of concealment, or the sordid promises of the Major. Prompt to execute what he had once conceived, and equally anxious to afford Walter a chance of escape, and to secure his own family from danger, he took charge of the petition, set off instantly upon his journey, and relaxed not in his speed until he had reached the metropolis. CHAPTER III. There's no retiring now; we are broke in To dare, and power to do, gave the first difference The False One. IMITATING the example set by Stanley Forester in his letter to Agatha, we shall avoid all mention of the perils and adventures that attended his escape from Hales Court. His latter life had afforded such a succession of similar enterprises that to himself they appeared scarcely worthy of record; and we know not how to account for his passing scathless through such repeated ordeals, unless by offering him as a singular illustration of the old adage, that fortune favours the bold. Achievements that to others would have seemed impossible, he had happily accomplished by simply daring to attempt them, and it must be recollected that the ample funds placed at his disposal, combined with the disturbed and disaffected state of the country, offered peculiar facilities to a man who was not less dexterous than dauntless, and who possessed, moreover, in the graces of his person, and the winning enthusiasm of his eloquence, an almost irresistible power of persuasion. Although he had dispatched his impassioned letter immediately upon his arrival at Helvoetsluys, truth compels us to admit, even at the risk of lowering him in the estimation of those who imagine that a lover's heart, like the Polar needle, should invariably point one way, that the thoughts of his absent mistress did not by any means form the exclusive occupation of his mind. He loved his Country at large better than any individual that it contained; patriotism was the ruling passion to which every other was subservient, |