"Then he is guiding you wrong," replied Ned Dyram. "Go straight up that street, follow the course of the river to the left, and, when you have passed the second bridge, turn up to the right, cross the Lys, and you will see the Dominicans right before you. He was taking you to the Carmelites." "Well, don't fail to come," rejoined Sir Simeon of Roydon; and he then rode on, pouring no very measured abuse upon the head of his guide. The moment he was gone, Dyram hurried back to Ella Brune; and a long and eager conversation ensued between them, of a very different tone and character from any which had taken place before. Ella was obliged to trust and to confide in him, to tell her reasons for abhorring and shrinking from the sight of one whom her evil fortune seemed continually to bring across her path, and to consult with him on the means to be employed for the purpose of concealing her presence in Ghent from Roydon's eyes, and of discovering what chance had brought him to the same city so soon after herself. Nothing, perhaps, could have given Dyram more satisfaction than this result. The new relations which it established between Ella and himself--the opportunities which it promised of serving, assisting her, and laying her under obligations--the constant excuse which it afforded for seeing her, and consulting with her on subjects of deep interest to herself--were all points which afforded him much gratification. But that was not all: he fancied that he saw the means of obtaining a power over her--a command as well as an influence. Vague schemes presented themselves to his mind of entangling her in a chain that she could not break--of binding her to himself by ties that she could not shake off--and of using the haughty and vicious knight, whose character he easily estimated, from the information now given him by Ella, as a tool for the accomplishment of his own purposes. I have said that these schemes were vague; and perhaps they might never have taken any more definite a form, had not other events occurred which led him to carry them out almost against his own will. Man, in the midst of circumstances, is like one in a Dædalian labyrinth, where a thousand paths are ready to confound him, a thousand turnings to lead him to the same end, and that end disappointment; while but one, of all the many ways, can reach the issue of success.