As he went, he meditated on the hopes which his conference with Green had raised up again; but the brightness of those hopes faded away beneath the light of thought.  Yet, though such was the case, the determination remained, and grew firmer and stronger, perhaps from the want of any very great expectation.  He determined to appeal to the King, as the last act in his power; to do so firmly and resolutely; and if the King refused his petition, and gave him no reason to hope, to apply, as the next greatest favour, for a memorandum in writing of his having so appealed, in order that he might prove to Laura and her father that he had done all in his power to give the Duke an opportunity of rejecting that means of escape, which could only be obtained by uniting his daughter to one, from whom, in any other circumstances, he would have withheld her.

“It is strange,” he said to himself, “it is strange and sad, that I can scarcely move a step in any way without the risk of dishonour; and that the only means to avoid it requires every exertion to deprive myself of peace, and happiness, and love for ever.”

Thus he thought as he went along; and imagination pictured his next parting from her he loved, and all that was to follow it—­the grief that she would suffer as well as himself—­the long dreary lapse of sad and cheerless hours that was to fill up the remainder of existence for him, with all happy hopes at an end, and fortune, station, love, gone away like visions of the night.

Early on the ensuing morning, he despatched a note to the Tower, telling Laura that business, affecting her father’s safety, would keep him away from her at the hour he had promised to visit her.  He would be with her, he said, at all events before nightfall; and he added every term of love and affection that his heart suggested; but at the same time he could not prevent a tone of sadness spreading through his letter, which communicated to Laura a fear lest her father’s hopes of escape should be frustrated.

By eleven o’clock Wilton was at the door of the small inn named for the meeting; and two handsome horses which were standing there, held by a servant, announced that Green had arrived before him.  On going in, he found his strange friend far more splendidly dressed than he had ever seen him, apparently waiting for his coming.  His fine person told to much advantage, his upright carriage and somewhat proud and stern demeanour, the grave and thoughtful look of his eye, all gave him the appearance of one of high mind and high station, accustomed to action and command.  A certain sort of gay and dissipated look, which he had previously borne, was altogether gone:  within the last few months he had become paler and thinner, and his countenance had assumed an air of gloom which did not even leave it when he laughed.

As Wilton now advanced towards him, he could not but feel that there was something dignified and imposing in his aspect; and yet it caused him a strange sensation, to think that he was going into the King’s presence in company with a man whom he had actually first met upon the King’s Highway.