as not one hastily to be judged and dismissed.
Carefully he weighed it in the balance of his mind. On the one hand was
the knowledge that did they succeed in making good their escape,
Kenneth would naturally fly for shelter to his friends the Ashburns--the
usurpers of Castle Marleigh. What then more natural than his taking with
him the man who had helped him to escape, and who shared his own danger
of recapture? And with so plausible a motive for admission to Castle
Marleigh, how easy would not his vengeance become? He might at first
wean himself into their good graces, and afterwards--

Before his mental eyes there unfolded itself the vista of a great
revenge; one that should be worthy of him, and commensurate with the
foul deed that called for it.

In the other scale the treacherous flavour of this method weighed
heavily. He proposed to bind the lad to a promise, the shape of whose
fulfilment he would withhold--a promise the lad would readily give, and
yet, one that he must sooner die than enter into, did he but know what
manner of fulfilment would be exacted. It amounted to betraying the lad
into a betrayal of his friends--the people of his future wife. Whatever
the issue for Crispin, 'twas odds Kenneth's prospect of wedding this
Cynthia would be blighted for all time by the action into which Galliard
proposed to thrust him all unconscious.

So stood the case in Galliard's mind, and the scales fell now on one
side, now on the other. But against his scruples rose the memory of the
treatment which the lad had meted out to him that night; the harshness
of the boy's judgment; the irrevocable contempt wherein he had clearly
seen that he was held by this fatuous milksop. All this aroused his
rancour now, and steeled his heart against the voice of honour. What
was this boy to him, he asked himself, that he should forego for him the
accomplishing of his designs? How had this lad earned any consideration
from him? What did he owe him? Naught! Still, he would not decide in
haste.

It was characteristic of the man whom Kenneth held to be destitute of
all honourable principles, to stand thus in the midst of perils, when
every second that sped lessened their chances of escape, turning over
in his mind calmly and collectedly a point of conduct. It was in his
passions only that Crispin was ungovernable, in violence only that he
was swift--in all things else was he deliberate.

Of this Kenneth had now a proof that set him quaki