tunate affair, will be to produce your certain condemnation; to
cut you off from all chance of hope."
Lady Mary Fenwick had hitherto stood silent a step or two behind
Wilton; but now advancing a little, she said, "Indeed, Sir John, you
had better think of it. It seems to me that what Mr. Brown says is
reasonable, and that it would be much better so to state or modify
your charge against the Duke as not to hazard his life."
"Nonsense, Lady Mary!" exclaimed Fenwick; "neither you nor he know
anything of what my charges are, or in what my hopes consist. My
charge against the Duke shall stand as I have given it; and you may
tell him, that it is not on my evidence alone he will be condemned;
so that yours, young man, will not tend much to save him."
Wilton saw that it would be useless to urge the matter any farther at
that moment, though, notwithstanding the perverse determination shown
by the prisoner, he was not without hope that their conversation
might ultimately produce some effect upon his mind.
"Well, Sir John," he said, "I will keep you no longer from
conversation with your lady. I grieve for you on every account. I
grieve to see you here, I grieve for the situation in which you have
placed yourself, and I still more grieve to see you struggling to
deliver yourself from that situation by means which MAY PRODUCE the
destruction of others, and will certainly PRODUCE your own."
"I neither want your grief, nor care for it, sir," replied the
prisoner. "Good night, good night."
Wilton then turned and left him; but Lady Mary Fenwick accompanied
the young gentleman into the passage, saying in a low voice, "The
Earl of Byerdale has seen him twice. You will do well to be upon
your guard there."
"Thank you, lady, thank you," replied Wilton. "I am upon my guard,
and am most grateful for what you have done."
Thus saying, he left her: and as it was too late, at that hour, to
visit the prisoner in the Tower, he turned towards his own home; but
ere he reached it, he bethought him of seeking some farther
information from the public reports of the day, which were only to be
met with in their highest perfection in the several different resorts
of wits and politicians which have become familiar to our minds in
the writings of Steele and Addison. Will's and the Chocolate-house,
and other places of the same kind, supplied in a very great degree
the places of the Times, the Herald, the Globe, or the Courier; and
though the Postman and several other papers gave a scant