fallen into. Repentant as she might be, those dears should not be
pursued and cruelly balked of their young bliss! "To-morrow, if you
please, Mr. Harley: not to-day!"

"A pleasant spot," Adrian observed, smiling at his easy prey.

By a measurement of dates he discovered that the bridegroom had brought
his bride to the house on the day he had quitted Raynham, and this was
enough to satisfy Adrian's mind that there had been concoction and
chicanery. Chance, probably, had brought him to the old woman: chance
certainly had not brought him to the young one.

"Very well, ma'am," he said, in answer to her petitions for his
favourable offices with Sir Austin in behalf of her little pension and
the bridal pair, "I will tell him you were only a blind agent in the
affair, being naturally soft, and that you trust he will bless the
consummation. He will be in town
to-morrow morning; but one of you two must see him to-night. An emetic
kindly administered will set our friend here on his legs. A bath and a
clean shirt, and he might go. I don't see why your name should appear at
all. Brush him up, and send him to Bellingham by the seven o'clock
train. He will find his way to Raynham; he knows the neighbourhood best
in the dark. Let him go and state the case. Remember, one of you must
go."

With this fair prospect of leaving a choice of a perdition between the
couple of unfortunates, for them to fight and lose all their virtues
over, Adrian said, "Good morning."

Mrs. Berry touchingly arrested him. "You won't refuse a piece of his