effect that purchase."

"What! what!" exclaimed the squire, hastily buttoning his breast-pocket
with one hand, while he seized Randal's arm with the other--"my son's
marriage! You lent yourself to that, too? Don't look so like a lashed
hound! Speak out like a man, if man you be!"

"Lent himself to that, my good sir!" said the count. "Do you suppose
that the Marchesa di Negra could have condescended to an alliance with a
Mr. Hazeldean--"

"Condescended! a Hazeldean of Hazeldean!" exclaimed the squire, turning
fiercely, and half choked with indignation. "Unless," continued the
count, imperturbably, "she had been compelled by circumstances to do
that said Mr. Hazeldean the honour to accept a pecuniary accommodation,
which she had no other mode to discharge? And here, sir, the family
of Hazeldean, I am bound to say, owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr.
Leslie; for it was he who most forcibly represented to her the necessity
for this misalliance; and it was he, I believe, who suggested to my
friend the baron the mode by which Mr. Hazeldean was best enabled to
afford the accommodation my sister deigned to accept."

"Mode! the post-obit!" ejaculated the squire, relinquishing his hold of
Randal to lay his gripe upon Levy.

The baron shrugged his shoulders. "Any friend of Mr. Frank Hazeldean's
would have recommended the same, as the most economical mode of raising
money."

Parson Dale, who had at first been more shocked than any one present at
these gradual revelations of Randal's treachery, now turning his eyes
towards the young man, was so seized with commiseration at the sight of
Randal's face, that he laid his hand on Harley's arm, and whispered him,
"Look, look at that countenance!--and one so young! Spare him, spare
him!"

"Mr. Leslie," said Harley, in softened tones, "believe me that nothing
short of justice to the Duke di Serrano--justice even to my young friend
Mr. Hazeldean--has compelled me to this painful duty. Here let all
inquiry terminate."

"And," said the count, with exquisite blandness, "since I have been
informed by my Lord L'Estrange that Mr. Leslie has represented as a
serious act on his part that personal challenge to myself, which I
understood was but a pleasant and amicable arrangement in our baffled
scheme, let me assure Mr. Leslie that if he be not satisfied with the
regret that I now express for the leading share I have taken in these
disclosures, I am wholly at Mr. Leslie's service."

"Pea