This operation was duly performed, and as recovery or strangulation were the only alternatives nature had, in the case of Andrew Britton, she embraced the former and he opened his eyes. CHAPTER LXV. An Interview with a Secretary of State.—Sir Francis Hartleton’s Difficulties. In order to explain the cause of the singular interruption which occurred to the festive scene at the Chequers, we must glance at the proceedings of Sir Francis Hartleton for the preceding two days. We have before hinted at the very awkward position in which Sir Francis Hartleton was placed as a magistrate, having suspicions of the very strongest mature for suspecting some foul crime on the parts of Learmont, Andrew Britton, and the man Gray, of whose existence and identification with the third in the iniquitous proceeding he had only lately had good reason to believe, and yet such suspicions not assuming a sufficiently tangible form to enable him to found a charge upon him. At the same time, working as he was in the dark in trying to unravel a plot the intricacies of which seemed to him to increase instead of diminish as he dived into it, he never knew but what some false step of his—some effort of over-zeal might put the guilty parties not only on their guard of him particularly, but might set them to work to take more effectual steps than they had hitherto done for the suppression of every particle of tangible evidence against them, but might likewise induce deeper and blacker crimes than any they had yet attempted or committed for the preservation of secrets essential to their existence. Thus it was that although Sir Francis Hartleton had a strong perception of the main facts of the case he had in hand as regarded the guilt of Learmont, yet he felt that he could not be too cautious in what he said or did consequent thereon, until some circumstance should arise to give a direct clue to such a chain of evidence as should enable him at once to pounce upon them all, and insure their condemnation on irrefragible proofs. After his first interview with Albert Seyton, he had carefully made a narrative of all the circumstances connected with the affair, and as it will be recollected that by that interview, he was enabled to place together the names of Gray, Britton, and Learmont, in such a manner as to be certain that they were then, or had been, engaged in some great act of villany together, he was in a much better situation for arriving at a correct conclusion with regard to the various circumstances that came crowding upon his recollection.