id Randal; "but I should think this poor Doctor can
scarcely be the person she seeks to discover?"

"That is no affair of ours," answered Egerton; "we are English
gentlemen, and make not a step towards the secrets of another."

Now, when Randal revolved this rather ambiguous answer, and recalled the
uneasiness with which Egerton had first heard of his visit to Hazeldean,
he thought that he was indeed near the secret which Edward desired to
conceal from him and from all--viz., the incognito of the Italian whom
Lord l'Estrange had taken under his protection.

"My cards," said Randal to himself, as, with a deep-drawn sigh, he
resumed his soliloquy, "are become difficult to play. On the one hand,
to entangle Frank into marriage with this foreigner, the Squire could
never forgive him. On the other hand, if she will not marry him without
the dowry--and that depends on her brother's wedding this
countrywoman--and that countrywoman be as I surmise, Violante--and
Violante be this heiress, and to be won by me! Tush, tush. Such delicate
scruples in a woman so placed and so constituted as Beatrice di Negra,
must be easily talked away. Nay, the loss itself of this alliance to her
brother, the loss of her own dowry--the very pressure of poverty and
debt--would compel her into the sole escape left to her option. I will
then follow up the old plan; I will go down to Hazeldean, and see if
there be any substance in the new one;--and then to reconcile
both--aha--the House of Leslie shall rise yet from its ruin--and--"

Here he was startled from his reverie by a friendly slap on the
shoulder, and an exclamation,--"Why, Randal, you are more absent than
when you used to steal away from the cricket ground, muttering Greek
verses at Eton."

"My dear Frank," said Randal, "you--you are so _brusque_, and I was just
thinking of you."

"Were you? And kindly, then, I am sure," said Frank Hazeldean, his
honest handsome face lighted up with the unsuspecting genial trust of
friendship; "and Heaven knows," he added, with a sadder voice, and a
graver expression on his eye and lip--"Heaven knows I want all the
kindness you can give me!"

"I thought," said Randal, "that your father's last supply, of which I
was fortunate enough to be the bearer, would clear off your more
pressing debts. I don't pretend to preach, but really I must say once
more, you should not be so extravagant."

_Frank_ (seriously).--"I have done my best to reform. I have sold o