dge for yourself, my dear Mr.
Hazeldean. Ask your brother whether Madame di Negra is one whom he would
advise his nephew to marry."

"My brother!" exclaimed the squire, furiously. "Consult my distant
brother on the affairs of my own son?"

"He is a man of the world," put in Randal.

"And of feeling and honour," said the parson; "and, perhaps, through
him, we may be enabled to enlighten Frank, and save him from what
appears to be the snare of an artful woman."

"Meanwhile," said Randal, "I will seek Frank, and do my best with him.
Let me go now,--I will return in an hour or so."

"I will accompany you," said the parson.

"Nay, pardon me, but I think we two young men can talk more openly
without a third person, even so wise and kind as you."

"Let Randal go," growled the squire. And Randal went. He spent some
time with Frank, and the reader will easily divine how that time was
employed. As he left Frank's lodgings, he found himself suddenly seized
by the squire himself.

"I was too impatient to stay at home and listen to the parson's
prosing," said Mr. Hazeldean, nervously. "I have shaken Dale off. Tell
me what has passed. Oh, don't fear,--I'm a man, and can bear the worst."

Randal drew the squire's arm within his, and led him into the adjacent
park.

"My dear sir," said he, sorrowfully, "this is very confidential what
I am about to say. I must repeat it to you, because, without such
confidence, I see not how to advise you on the proper course to take.
But if I betray Frank, it is for his good, and to his own father;--only
do not tell him. He would never forgive me; it would forever destroy my
influence over him."

"Go on, go on," gasped the squire; "speak out. I'll never tell the
ungrateful boy that I learned his secrets from another."

"Then," said Randal, "the secret of his entanglement with Madame di
Negra is simply this: he found her in debt--nay, on the point of being
arrested--"

"Debt! arrested! Jezebel!"

"And in paying the debt himself, and saving her from arrest, he
conferred on her the obligation which no woman of honour could accept
save from an affianced husband. Poor Frank!--if sadly taken in, still we
must pity and forgive him!"

Suddenly, to Randal's great surprise, the squire's whole face brightened
up.

"I see, I see!" he exclaimed, slapping his thigh. "I have it, I have
it! 'T is an affair of money! I can buy her off. If she took money from
him--the mercenary, painted baggage I--