an only change when
the emotions which fill it are changed; and the religion of personal
fear remains nearly at the level of the savage.

He had seen Raffles actually going away on the Brassing coach, and this
was a temporary relief; it removed the pressure of an immediate dread,
but did not put an end to the spiritual conflict and the need to win
protection. At last he came to a difficult resolve, and wrote a letter
to Will Ladislaw, begging him to be at the Shrubs that evening for a
private interview at nine o'clock. Will had felt no particular surprise
at the request, and connected it with some new notions about the
"Pioneer;" but when he was shown into Mr. Bulstrode's private room, he
was struck with the painfully worn look on the banker's face, and was
going to say, "Are you ill?" when, checking himself in that abruptness,
he only inquired after Mrs. Bulstrode, and her satisfaction with the
picture bought for her.

"Thank you, she is quite satisfied; she has gone out with her daughters
this evening. I begged you to come, Mr. Ladislaw, because I have a
communication of a very private--indeed, I will say, of a sacredly
confidential nature, which I desire to make to you. Nothing, I dare
say, has been farther from your thoughts than that there had been
important ties in the past which could connect your history with mine."

Will felt something like an electric shock. He was already in a state
of keen sensitiveness and hardly allayed agitation on the subject of
ties in the past, and his presentiments were not agreeable. It seemed
like the fluctuations of a dream--as if the action begun by that loud
bloated stranger were being carried on by this pale-eyed sickly looking
piece of respectability, whose subdued tone and glib formality of
speech were at this moment almost as repulsive to him as their
remembered contrast. He answered, with a marked change of color--

"No, indeed, nothing."

"You see before you, Mr. Ladislaw, a man who is deeply stricken. But
for the urgency of conscience and the knowledge that I am before the
bar of One who seeth not as man seeth, I should be under no compulsion
to make the disclosure which has been my object in asking you to come
here to-night. So far as human laws go, you have no claim on me
whatever."

Will was even more uncomfortable than wondering. Mr. Bulstrode had
paused, leaning his head on his hand, and looking at the floor. But he
now fixed his examining glance on Wi