on of the law, or even of
discovery or suspicion. But with what feelings his heart that day
throbbed, must be left to those of the reader to imagine. It was an
object of no common interest which had brought him to encounter so many
painful remembrances.

In consequence of Jeanie's letter to Lady Staunton, transmitting the
confession, he had visited the town of Carlisle, and had found Archdeacon
Fleming still alive, by whom that confession had been received. This
reverend gentleman, whose character stood deservedly very high, he so far
admitted into his confidence, as to own himself the father of the
unfortunate infant which had been spirited away by Madge Wildfire,
representing the intrigue as a matter of juvenile extravagance on his own
part, for which he was now anxious to atone, by tracing, if possible,
what had become of the child. After some recollection of the
circumstances, the clergyman was able to call to memory, that the unhappy
woman had written a letter to George Staunton, Esq., younger, Rectory,
Willingham, by Grantham; that he had forwarded it to the address
accordingly, and that it had been returned, with a note from the Reverend
Mr. Staunton, Rector of Willingham, saying, he knew no such person as him
to whom the letter was addressed. As this had happened just at the time
when George had, for the last time, absconded from his father's house to
carry off Effie, he was at no loss to account for the cause of the
resentment, under the influence of which his father had disowned him.
This was another instance in which his ungovernable temper had occasioned
his misfortune; had he remained at Willingham but a few days longer, he
would have received Margaret Murdockson's letter, in which were exactly
described the person and haunts of the woman, Annaple Bailzou, to whom
she had parted with the infant. It appeared that Meg Murdockson had been
induced to make this confession, less from any feelings of contrition,
than from the desire of obtaining, through George Staunton or his
father's means, protection and support for her daughter Madge. Her letter
to George Staunton said, "That while the writer lived, her daughter would
have needed nought from any body, and that she would never have meddled
in these affairs, except to pay back the ill that George had done to her
and hers. But she was to die, and her daughter would be destitute, and
without reason to guide her. She had lived in the world long enough to
know that