"You can settle that with him afterwards, Gimlet," replied Mr. Beauchamp, "for he is coming back in a day or two; but I now want to ask you a question which you must answer or not as you think fit. You were with Captain Hayward, it seems, when he came up with the man who fired into the window of the hall, and you saw his face, I think?" Gimlet nodded his head, saying, "I did Sir." "Do you know the man?" asked Beauchamp, fixing his eyes upon him. "Yes, Sir," replied the other at once, with the colour coming up into his face, "but before you go on, just let me say a word. That person and I were in some sort companions together once, in a matter we had better have let alone, and I should not like to 'peach." "In regard to the attack upon the carriage--to which I know you allude--I am not about to inquire," replied Beauchamp, "but I will ask you only one other question, and I promise you, upon my honour, not to use any thing you tell me against the person. Was his name Moreton?" "I won't tell you a lie, Sir," answered Gimlet. "It was, though how you have found it out I can't guess, for he has been away from this part of the country for many a year." "It matters not," answered Beauchamp, "how I found it out; I know he has been absent many a year. Can you tell me how long he has returned?" "That I can't say, I'm sure, Sir," replied the man; "but I did hear that he and the lady have been lodging at Buxton's inn for a day or two, but not more. It's a great pity to see how he has gone on, and to sell that fine old place that has been theirs for so many hundred years! I should think, that if one had any thing worth having that had been one's father's, one's grandfather's, and one's great grandfather's, for such a long while, it would keep one straight. It's mostly when a man has nothing to pride himself upon that he goes wrong." "Not always," answered Beauchamp, "unbridled passion, my good friend, youth, inexperience, sometimes accident, lead a man to commit a false step, and that is very difficult to retrieve in his life." "Aye, aye, I know that, I know that, Sir," answered Gimlet, "but I hope not impossible;" and he looked up in Beauchamp's face, with an expression of doubt and inquiry. "By no means impossible," replied the gentleman, "and the man who has the courage and strength of mind to retrieve a false step, gives a better assurance to society for his future conduct than perhaps a man who has never committed one can do."