"Why, with Mr. Trevanion, I believe, sir."

"In the North,--what is the address!"

"Lord N--, C-- Hall, near W--"

I heard no more.

The conviction of some villanous snare struck me as with the swiftness
and force of lightning. Why, if Trevanion were really ill, had the
false servant concealed it from me? Why suffered me to waste his time,
instead of hastening to Lady Ellinor? How, if Mr. Trevanion's sudden
illness had brought the man to London,--how had he known so long
beforehand (as he himself told me, and his appointment with the waiting-
woman proved) the day he should arrive? Why now, if there were no
design of which bliss Trevanion was the object, why so frustrate the
provident foresight of her mother, and take advantage of the natural
yearning of affection, the quick impulse of youth, to hurry off a girl
whose very station forbade her to take such a journey without suitable
protection,--against what must be the wish, and what clearly were the
instructions, of Lady Ellinor? Alone, worse than alone! Fanny
Trevanion was then in the hands of two servants who were the instruments
and confidants of an adventurer like Vivian; and that conference between
those servants, those broken references to the morrow coupled with the
name Vivian had assumed,--needed the unerring instincts of love more
cause for terror?--terror the darker because the exact shape it should
assume was obscure and indistinct.

I sprang from the house.