“I wish I had never thought of any still more dangerous,” replied Green; “I should not have the faces looking at me that now disturb my sleep.  But this is not my adventure,” he continued, “but his—­his sitting opposite there.  I have nothing to do with it, but assisting him.”

“Yes, indeed, my dear Wilton,” replied Lord Sherbrooke, “the adventure is mine.  All other trades failing, and having exhausted every other mad prank but that, I am taking a turn upon the King’s Highway, which has become far more fashionable now-a-days than the Park, the puppet-show, or even Constitution Hill.”

“Nay, nay, Henry!” exclaimed his wife, interrupting him, “I will not hear you malign yourself in that way.  He is not taking a turn upon the King’s Highway, sir, for here he sits, bodily, I trust, beside his wife; and if the spirit have anything to do with the adventure that he talks of, the motive is a noble one—­the object is not what he says.”

“Hush, hush, Caroline,” replied Lord Sherbrooke; “you will make Wilton believe, first, that I am sane; next, that I am virtuous; and, lastly, that I love any woman sufficiently to submit to her contradicting me; things which I have been labouring hard for months to make him think impossible.”

“He knows, sir,” said Green, interrupting him, “that you are generous, and that you are kind, though he does not yet know to what extent.”

“I believe he knows me better than any man now living,” replied Lord Sherbrooke; “but it happens somewhat inopportunely that he should be here to-night.—­Hark, Colonel!  There is even now the galloping of a horse round to the back of the house.  Let you and I go into the other room, and see what booty our comrade has brought back.”

He spoke with one of his gay but uncertain smiles, while Green’s eyes sparkled with some of the brightness of former times, as he listened eagerly, to make sure that Lord Sherbrooke’s ear had not deceived him.

“You are right, you are right, sir,” he said; “and then, I hear Byerly’s voice speaking to the old woman.”

But before he could proceed to put Lord Sherbrooke’s suggestion in execution, Byerly was in the room, holding up a large leathern bag, and exclaiming, “Here it is! here it is!”

“Alas!” said Caroline—­“I fear dangerously obtained.”

“Not in the least, madam,” replied Byerly:  “if the man dies, let it be remarked, he dies of fright, and nothing else; not a finger has been laid, in the way of violence, upon his person; but he would have given up anything to any one who asked him.  We made him promise and vow that he would ride back to the town he came from; and tying his feet under his horse’s belly, we sent him off as hard as he could go.  I, indeed, kept at a distance watching all, but the others gave me the bag as soon as it was obtained, and then scattered over the moor, every man his own way.  I am back to London with all speed, and not a point of this will be ever known.”