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 scanty share of information, yet the inner room of the St. James’s Coffee-house might be considered as representing the leading article to the newspaper of the day.

To one or two of these houses, then, Wilton repaired, and found the whole town still busy with the arrest of Sir John Fenwick, and with the names of persons he was said to have accused.  If the rumours were to be believed, he had brought charges of one kind or another against half the high nobility and statesmen of the land.  The King’s servants and most familiar friends, many who were still actually employed by him, and many who had aided to seat him on the throne, were all said to be accused of treasonable communications with the court of St. Germain; and Wilton had the satisfaction of thinking, that if there were, indeed, any safety in numbers, the Duke had that security at least.

When he had satisfied himself on this point, he returned to his own house, to meditate upon the best defence which could be set up for the noble prisoner.  None, however, suggested itself better than that which he had sketched out in his conversation with Sir John Fenwick; and without loss of time he put it down in writing, in order to take the Duke’s opinion upon it.  There was one flaw, indeed, in the chain which he could not but see, and which he feared might be used by an enemy to the Duke’s disadvantage.  He could prove, that after Lady Laura had been carried away the Duke had no opportunity whatever of disclosing the plot until it was already discovered; but unfortunately, between the time of the meeting in Leadenhall-street and the period at which the conspirators so daringly bore off the lady from the terrace there had been a lapse of some time, during which her father might have made any communication to the government that he liked.  There was a hope, however, that this might pass unremarked; and at all events what he proposed was the only defence that could be set up.

On the following morning, when he saw the Earl of Byerdale, he inquired if he had seen the Duke; but found that such was not the case, business being the excuse for having failed in his promise.  Wilton, however, proceeded to the Tower as soon as he was free, and found Laura now sharing the apartments assigned to her father, and striving to support and comfort him, but apparently in vain.  The Duke’s mind was still in a terrible state of depression; and the want of all certain intelligence, the failure of the Earl of Byerdale’s promise, and the absence of Wilton, had caused his anxiety apparently to increase rather than to diminish, since the first day of his imprisonment.