"Tush!" muttered the stranger impatiently as he closed the door.

The next morning when he awoke Legard saw upon the table a small packet;
it contained a sum that exceeded the debt named.

On the envelope was written, "Remember the bond."

The stranger had already quitted Venice. He had not travelled through
the Italian cities under his own name, for he had just returned from the
solitudes of the East, and was not yet hardened to the publicity of the
gossip which in towns haunted by his countrymen attended a well-known
name; that given to Legard by the innkeeper, mutilated by Italian
pronunciation, the young man had never heard before, and soon forgot. He
paid his debts, and he scrupulously kept his word. The adventure of that
night went far, indeed, to reform and ennoble the mind and habits of
George Legard. Time passed, and he never met his benefactor, till in the
halls of Burleigh he recognized the stranger in Maltravers.



CHAPTER VII.

WHY value, then, that strength of mind they boast,
As often varying, and as often lost?

HAWKINS BROWNE (translated by SOAME JENYNS).

MALTRAVERS was lying at length, with his dogs around him, under a
beech-tree that threw its arms over one of the calm still pieces of water
that relieved the groves of Burleigh, when Colonel Legard spied him from