rn, my lord, about sixteen years ago, at Anfield,
one summer a morning, and carried by your cousin, Mr. Henry Norwynne,
to Mr. Rymer's, the curate there; and I swore whose child he was
before the dean, and I did not take a false oath. Indeed, indeed, my
lord, I did not.

"I will say no more for fear this should not come safe to your hand,
for the people treat me as if I were mad; so I will say no more, only
this, that, whether I live or die, I forgive everybody, and I hope
everybody will forgive me. And I pray that God will take pity on my
son, if you refuse; but I hope you will not refuse.

"AGNES PRIMROSE."

William rejoiced, as he laid down the petition, that she had asked a
favour he could bestow; and hoped by his protection of the son to
redress, in some degree, the wrongs he had done the mother. He instantly
sent for the messenger into his apartment, and impatiently asked, "If he
had seen the boy, and given proper directions for his care."

"I have given directions, sir, for his funeral."

"How!" cried William.

"He pined away ever since his mother was confined, and died two days
after her execution."

Robbed, by this news, of his only gleam of consolation--in the
consciousness of having done a mortal injury for which he never now by
any means could atone, he saw all his honours, all his riches, all his
proud selfish triumphs fade before him! They seemed like airy nothings,
which in rapture he would exchange for the peace of a tranquil
conscience!

He envied Agnes the death to which he first exposed, then condemned, her.
He envied her even the life she struggled through from his neglect, and
felt that his future days would be far less happy than her former
existence. He calculated with precision.

CHAPTER XLIII.

The progressive rise of William and fall of Agnes had now occupied nearly
the term of eighteen years. Added to these, another year elapsed before
the younger Henry completed the errand on which his heart was fixed, and
returned to England. Shipwreck, imprisonment, and other ills to which
the poor and unfriended traveller is peculiarly exposed, detained the
father and son in various remote regions until the present period; and,
for the last fifteen years, denied them the means of all correspondence
with their own country.

The elder Henry was now past sixty years of age, and the younger almost
beyond the prime of life. Still length of time had not