a son then,--a son to Egerton! Leonard is that son. I should have
known it by the likeness, by the fond foolish impulse that moved me to
him. This is why he confided to me these fearful memoirs. He seeks his
father,--he shall find him."

MR. DALE (mistaking the cause of Harley's silence).--"I honour your
compunction, my Lord. Oh, let your heart and your conscience continue to
speak to your worldly pride."

HARLEY.--"My compunction, heart, conscience! Mr. Dale, you insult me!"

MR. DALE (sternly).--"Not so; I am fulfilling my mission, which bids me
rebuke the sinner. Leonora Avenel speaks in me, and commands the guilty
father to acknowledge the innocent child!"

Harley half rose, and his eyes literally flashed fire; but he calmed his
anger into irony. "Ha!" said he, with a sarcastic smile, "so you suppose
that I was the perfidious seducer of Nora Avenel,--that I am the callous
father of the child who came into the world without a name. Very well,
sir, taking these assumptions for granted, what is it you demand from me
on behalf of this young man?"

"I ask from you his happiness," replied Mr. Dale, imploringly; and
yielding to the compassion with which Leonard inspired him, and
persuaded that Lord L'Estrange felt a father's love for the boy whom
he had saved from the whirlpool of London, and guided to safety and
honourable independence, he here, with simple eloquence, narrated all
Leonard's feelings for Helen,--his silent fidelity to her image, though
a child's, his love when he again beheld her as a woman, the modest
fears which the parson himself had combated, the recommendation that Mr.
Dale had forced upon him, to confess his affection to Helen, and plead
his cause. "Anxious, as you may believe, for his success," continued
the parson, "I waited without your gates till he came from Miss Digby's
presence. And oh, my Lord, had you but seen his face!--such emotion and
such despair! I could not learn from him what had passed. He escaped
from me and rushed away. All that I could gather was from a few
broken words, and from those words I formed the conjecture (it may be
erroneous) that the obstacle to his happiness was not in Helen's heart,
my Lord, but seemed to me as if it were in yourself. Therefore, when he
had vanished from my sight, I took courage, and came at, once to you.
If he be your son, and Helen Digby be your ward,--she herself an orphan,
dependent on your bounty,--why should they be severed? Equals in years