tions, what
their astonishment, what their indignation, when they found that they
had been so basely deceived, when they found that he had been
apparently a sharer in such deceit! Would they ever believe that he
had acted unwittingly, when the whole transaction was evidently to
the advantage of none but himself; when he was to reap the whole of
the solid benefit, and the Earl of Byerdale had only to indulge a
revengeful caprice? Would anybody believe it? he asked himself: and,
clasping his hands together, he stood overpowered by the feeling of
having lost all hope in his own fate, of having lost her he loved for
ever, and, perhaps, of having lost also her love and esteem, and the
honourable name which he had hitherto borne.
For a few minutes he thus remained, as it were, utterly confounded,
with no thought but the mere consciousness of so many evils, and with
the cold sneering tone of the Earl of Byerdale still ringing in his
ears, announcing to him plainly, that the treacherous statesman
enjoyed the wound which he had inflicted upon him, almost as much as
the humiliation to which he had doomed the Duke.
Wilton's mind, however, as we have endeavoured to show throughout
this book, was not of a character to succumb under a sense of any
evils that affected him. All the painful feelings that assailed him
might, it is true, remain indelibly impressed upon his mind for long
years. It was not that the effect wore out, it was only that the mind
gained strength, and bore the burden that was cast upon it; and thus,
in the present instance, he shook off, in a very short space of time,
the thought of his sorrows themselves, to consider more clearly how
he should act under them.
But new difficulties presented themselves with this consideration.
He had solemnly pledged himself not to reveal what the Earl had told
him till the Duke was placed in safety. He had pledged himself to
Laura to throw no obstacle whatever in the way of her father's escape
by the means which the Earl had proposed. Neither was there a way of
evading any part of the plan as the Earl had arranged it. Otherwise
he would undoubtedly have attempted to postpone the marriage till
after the Duke was free, and then, having placed his own honour
beyond all question, to tell Laura and her father the whole truth.
But as the Earl had taken care to inform the governor of the Tower
that he was to go out with Lady Laura and the attendants after his
private marriage to her, there could be no pretence for his st