“Then, my lord duke,” replied the Earl of Byerdale, “he is as great a liar in this instance as you have proved yourself a fool in every one; for he plighted me his word not to reveal anything till your safety was secure.”

“It is you, sir, are the liar!” replied the Duke, forgetting everything in his anger, which was now raised to the highest pitch.  “It is you, sir, who are the liar, as you have been the knave throughout, and may now prove to be the fool too!”

“Hush, hush!” exclaimed the voice of Lord Sherbrooke, raised to a loud tone.  “Remember, my lord duke, that he is still my father!”

“Sir!” exclaimed the Earl, turning first upon his son, “I am your father no longer!  For you, duke, I see how the matter has gone with this vile and treacherous knave whom I have fostered!  But as sure as I am Earl of Byerdale—­”

“You are so no longer!” said a voice beside him, and at the same moment a strong muscular hand was laid upon his shoulder, with a grasp that he could not shake off: 

The Earl turned fiercely round, and laid his hand upon his sword; but his eyes lighted instantly on the fine stern countenance of Colonel Green, who keeping his grasp firmly upon the shoulder of the other, bent his dark eyes full upon his face.

The whole countenance and appearance of him whom we have called the Earl of Byerdale became like a withered flower.  The colour forsook his cheeks and his lips; he grew pale, he grew livid; his proud head sunk, his knees bent, he trembled in every limb; and when Green, at length, pushed him from him, saying in a loud tone and with a stern brow, “Get thee from me, Harry Sherbrooke!” he sank into a chair, unable to speak, or move, or support himself.

In the meantime, his son had cast his eyes upon the ground, and remained looking downwards with a look of pain, but not surprise; while treading close upon the steps of Colonel Green appeared Wilton Brown with the Lady Helen Oswald clinging to rather than leaning on his arm, and the Earl of Sunbury on her right hand.

Those who were most surprised in the room were certainly the Duke and Lady Laura, for they had been suddenly made witnesses to a strange scene without having any key to the feelings, the motives, or the actions of the performers therein; and the Duke gazed with quite sufficient wonder upon all he saw, to drown and overcome all feelings of anger at beholding Wilton so unexpectedly in the house of the Earl of Sunbury.

For a moment or two after the stern gesture of Green, there was silence, as if every one else were too much afraid or too much surprised to speak; and he also continued for a short space gazing sternly upon the man before him, as if his mind laboured with all that he had to say.  It was not, however, to the person whom his presence seemed entirely to have blasted, that he next addressed himself.