spurs plunged deep and deeper into the bleeding flanks: on desperately
scoured the horse. He passed the lodge; he was on the road; a chaise and
pair dashed by him; he heard not a voice exclaim "Varney!" he saw not the
wondering face of John Ardworth; bending over the tossing mane, he was
deaf, he was blind, to all without and around. A milestone glides by,
another, and a third. Ha! his eyes can see now. The object of his chase
is before him,--he views distinctly, on the brow of yon hill, the horse
and the rider, spurring fast, like himself. They descend the hill, horse
and horseman, and are snatched from his sight. Up the steep strains the
pursuer. He is at the summit. He sees the fugitive before him, almost
within hearing. Beck has slackened his steed; he seems swaying to and
fro in the saddle. Ho, ho! the barbed ring begins to work in his veins.
Varney looks round,--not another soul is in sight; a deep wood skirts the
road. Place and time seem to favour; Beck has reined in his horse,--he
bends low over the saddle, as if about to fall. Varney utters a half-
suppressed cry of triumph, shakes his reins, and spurs on, when suddenly-
-by the curve of the road, hid before--another chaise comes in sight,
close where Beck had wearily halted.

The chaise stops; Varney pulls in, and draws aside to the hedgerow. Some
one within the vehicle is speaking to the fugitive! May it not be St.
John himself? To his rage and his terror, he sees Beck painfully
dismount from his horse, sees him totter to the door of the chaise, sees
a servant leap from the box and help him up the step, sees him enter. It
must be Percival on his return,--Percival, to whom he tells that story of
horror! Varney's brute-like courage forsook him; his heart was appalled.
In one of those panics so common with that boldness which is but animal,
his sole thought became that of escape. He turned his horse's head to
the fence, forced his way desperately through the barrier, made into the
wood, and sat there, cowering and listening, till in another minute he