“Don’t waste your breath. I’ve settled it; and if you don’t tell me where she lives, ’tis easily found out, I suppose.” Randal mused a moment. “After all,” thought he, “why not? He will be sure so to speak as to enlist her pride against himself, and to irritate Frank to the utmost. Let him go.” Accordingly, he gave the information required; and, insisting with great earnestness on the Squire’s promise not to mention to Madame di Negra his knowledge of Frank’s pecuniary aid, (for that would betray Randal as the informant); and satisfying himself as he best might with the Squire’s prompt assurance, “that he knew how to settle matters, without saying why or wherefore, as long as he opened his purse wide enough,” he accompanied Mr Hazeldean back into the streets, and there left him—fixing an hour in the evening for an interview at Limmer’s, and hinting that it would be best to have that interview without the presence of the Parson. “Excellent good man,” said Randal, “but not with sufficient knowledge of the world for affairs of this kind, which _you_ understand so well.” “I should think so,” quoth the Squire, who had quite recovered his good-humour. “And the Parson is as soft as buttermilk. We must be firm here—firm, sir.” And the Squire struck the end of his stick on the pavement, nodded to Randal, and went on to Mayfair as sturdily and as confidently as if to purchase a prize cow at a cattle show. CHAPTER XII. “Bring the light nearer,” said John Burley—“nearer still.” Leonard obeyed, and placed the candle on a little table by the sick man’s bedside. Burley’s mind was partially wandering; but there was method in his madness. Horace Walpole said that “his stomach would survive all the rest of him.” That which in Burley survived the last was his quaint wild genius. He looked wistfully at the still flame of the candle: “It lives ever in the air!” said he. “What lives ever?”