Lord Ashborough again rang the bell. "Order horses to the carriage immediately!" he said, when his servant appeared; "and go on to Marlborough Street with my compliments to Sir George F----, and a request that he would send me an experienced officer, who can go down with me into the country directly. Mr. Tims, I must enquire into this business myself. I leave you here behind to take every measure that is necessary; but, above all things, remember that you have ten thousand pounds to pay into the hands of poor Beauchamp's agents. Do not fail to do it in the course of to-day; and explain to them that the business of the bill was entirely owing to forgetfulness. Let all the expenses be paid, and clear away that business at once. I am almost sorry that it was ever done." "And about Sir Sidney Delaware, my lord?" said Mr. Tims. "What"---- "Proceed against him instantly!" interrupted the peer, setting his teeth firm. "Proceed against him instantly, by every means and all means! The same with his son! Leave not a stone unturned to bring him to justice, or punish him for contumacy. If it had not been for those two villains, and their damned intrigues, this would not have happened to poor Henry!" Thus do men deceive themselves; and thus those things that, would they listen to conscience instead of desire, might become warnings and reproofs, they turn to apologies for committing fresh wrongs, and fuel to feed the fire of their passions into a blaze. The observation may be commonplace, but it is true; and let the man who does not do so, call it trite, if he will--no one else has a right. It was evident that the earl was in no placable mood; and Mr. Tims, though he had much yet to speak of, and many a plan to propose, in order to overcome those legal difficulties to the design he had suggested, which were now springing up rapidly to his mind, yet thought it expedient to put off the discussion of the whole till his noble patron was in a more fitting humour, not a little apprehensive that, if he touched upon the matter at present, the earl's anger might turn upon himself, for discovering obstacles in a path which he had formerly represented as smooth and easy. He therefore contented himself with asking a few more directions; and, leaving Lord Ashborough, proceeded straight to Doctors' Commons to make the necessary arrangements concerning his uncle's property. That done, he visited the stamp-office; his business there being of no small consequence to himself. It was neither more nor less than to cause a paper to be stamped, which he had found amongst other documents belonging to his uncle, which acknowledged the receipt of the sum of ten thousand pounds from Mr. Tims of Ryebury, and was signed by Henry Beauchamp.