spur forward with increased ardor; but all his speed could not divest him
of the idea that Fanshawe would finally overtake him, and attain the
object of their mutual pursuit. There was certainly no apparent ground for
this imagination: for every step of his horse increased the advantage
which Edward had gained, and he soon lost sight of his rival.

Shortly after overtaking Fanshawe, the young man passed the lonely cottage
formerly the residence of the Widow Butler, who now lay dead within. He
was at first inclined to alight, and make inquiries respecting the
fugitives; for he observed through the windows the faces of several
persons, whom curiosity, or some better feeling, had led to the house of
mourning. Recollecting, however, that this portion of the road must have
been passed by the angler and Ellen at too early an hour to attract
notice, he forbore to waste time by a fruitless delay.

Edward proceeded on his journey, meeting with no other noticeable event,
till, arriving at the summit of a hill, he beheld, a few hundred yards
before him, the Rev. Dr. Melmoth. The worthy president was toiling onward
at a rate unexampled in the history either of himself or his steed; the
excellence of the latter consisting in sure-footedness rather than
rapidity. The rider looked round, seemingly in some apprehension at the
sound of hoof-tramps behind him, but was unable to conceal his
satisfaction on recognizing Edward Walcott.

In the whole course of his life, Dr. Melmoth had never been placed in
circumstances so embarrassing as the present. He was altogether a child in
the ways of the world, having spent his youth and early manhood in
abstracted study, and his maturity in the solitude of these hills. The
expedition, therefore, on which fate had now thrust him, was an entire
deviation from the quiet pathway of all his former years; and he felt like