“The family lawyer told me, who heard it all talked over.”

“And why, then, did Guy get the letter of introduction from you, when he was already acquainted with them?”

“I am sure I cannot tell, except that you know he always does every thing unlike every one else, and to be sure the letter seems to have excited some amusement.  I must show you his answer to my first note to know how all was going on; for I felt very anxious about matters, when I heard from some person who had met them, that Guy was everlastingly in the house, and that Lord Callonby could not live without him.”

“Lord who, sir?” said I in a voice that made the old man upset his glass, and spring from his chair in horror.

“What the devil is the matter with the boy.  What makes you so pale?”

“Whose name did you say at that moment, sir,” said I with a slowness of speech that cost me agony.

“Lord Callonby, my old schoolfellow and fag at Eton.”

“And the lady’s name, sir?” said I, in scarcely an audible whisper.

“I’m sure I forget her name; but here’s the letter from Guy, and I think he mentions her name in the postscript.”

I snatched rudely the half-opened letter from the old man, as he was vainly endeavouring to detect the place he wanted, and read as follows: 

“My adored Jane is all your fondest wishes for my happiness could picture, and longs to see her dear uncle, as she already calls you on every occasion.”  I read no more—­my eyes swam—­the paper, the candles, every thing before me, was misty and confused; and although I heard my uncle’s voice still going on, I knew nothing of what he said.

For some time my mind could not take in the full extent of the base treachery I had met with, and I sat speechless and stupified.  By degrees my faculties became clearer, and with one glance I read the whole business, from my first meeting with them at Kilrush to the present moment.  I saw that in their attentions to me, they thought they were winning the heir of Elton, the future proprietor of fifteen thousand per annum.  From this tangled web of heartless intrigue I turned my thoughts to Lady Jane herself.  How had she betrayed me! for certainly she had not only received, but encouraged my addresses—­and so soon, too.—­To think that at the very moment when my own precipitate haste to see her had involved me in a nearly fatal accident, she was actually receiving the attentions of another!  Oh, it was too, too bad.

But enough—­even now I can scarcely dwell upon the memory of that moment, when the hopes and dreams of many a long day and night were destined to be thus rudely blighted.  I seized the first opportunity of bidding my uncle good night; and having promised him to reveal all my plans on the morrow, hurried to my room.

My plans! alas, I had none—­that one fatal paragraph had scattered them to the winds; and I threw myself upon my bed, wretched and almost heart-broken.