The conflicting struggle which had arisen in Gerald's mind, now gave place to one overpowering feeling. He was determined at all risks, and at whatever sacrifice to himself, to save his father. The breach of trust--the dereliction from his honour--the probability of being obliged to renounce the hand of the girl he loved, if detected in assisting in a plot to favour the evasion of the old cavalier--all faded away before his sight, and appeared as naught when compared with the hope of rescuing his father from his cruel situation. What the nature of the scheme was which Lord Clynton's friends seemed to be devising, in order to effect his escape, or how far he could assist in such a project, he was unable to divine. But the one thought was there, and mastered all--the thought that, on opening the way of escape before his father, he should be able to say, "Father, bless thy long-estranged son; it is he who saves thee." The rest was doubt, confusion, and darkness. Again and again did he turn over in his mind a thousand projects by which to aid in the evasion of the prisoner. Again and again did he endeavour to conjecture what might have been already purposed. All appeared to him to be impracticable on the one hand, and a mystery on the other. Already the consciousness of his secret induced him to look upon every one with suspicious eyes, as an enemy or a spy upon his conduct. But most of all, with that prejudice which pointed him out his supposed rival as the object of peculiar hatred, did he look upon Mark Maywood as his enemy in this matter--that Mark Maywood, whose violent party feelings, and fierce Republican abhorrence of royalty and the adherents of the fallen royalty of England, had already manifested themselves in such frequent outbreaks since his arrival as a fresh recruit in the troop--that Mark Maywood, who, in case of the evasion of one of the detested cavaliers, would be foremost to hunt him to the death--that Mark Maywood, who, even now, kept watch over his father's prison, and might, if he discovered the packet which was intended for the old man's hand, thwart for ever the only means of the unfortunate prisoner's escape. And as this thought came across him, Gerald counted, in an agony of mind, all the possibilities by which the packet might meet the sentinel's eye. With beating heart he reviewed, in imagination, every leaf which hid it, every overhanging branch which might add to its concealment. Bitterly did he reproach himself in his heart, that he had thrown it back to its hiding-place so hastily and carelessly upon hearing the approach of the guard. It seemed to him that if the packet were discovered, it would have been he who had delivered up his father, who had betrayed the secret on which depended his father's safety. The thought, however, that the evening was closing in, somewhat consoled him. Eternally long seemed the time spent in this mute agony of doubt. At