At this news I felt the serpent stir again within me, but I resolved to crush it at the first: I would not even expose myself to the temptation of passing by Isora's house; I went straight in search of my horse; I mounted, and fled resolutely from the scene of my soul's peril. "I will go," I said, "to the home of our childhood; I will surround myself by the mute tokens of the early love which my brother bore me; I will think,--while penance and prayer cleanse my soul from its black guilt,--I will think that I am also making a sacrifice to that brother." I returned then to Devereux Court, and I resolved to forego all hope--all persecution--of Isora! My brother--my brother, my heart yearns to you at this moment, even though years and distance, and, above all, my own crimes, place a gulf between us which I may never pass; it yearns to you when I think of those quiet shades, and the scenes where, pure and unsullied, we wandered together, when life was all verdure and freshness, and we dreamed not of what was to come! If even now my heart yearns to you, Morton, when I think of that home and those days, believe that it had some softness and some mercy for you then. Yes, I repeat, I resolved to subdue my own emotions, and interpose no longer between Isora and yourself. Full of this determination, and utterly melted towards you, I wrote you a long letter; such as we would have written to each other in our first youth. Two days after that letter all my new purposes were swept away, and the whole soil of evil thoughts which they had covered, not destroyed, rose again as the tide flowed from it, black and rugged as before. The very night on which I had writ that letter, came Montreuil secretly to my chamber. He had been accustomed to visit Gerald by stealth and at sudden moments; and there was something almost supernatural in the manner in which he seemed to pass from place to place, unmolested and unseen. He had now conceived a villanous project; and he had visited Devereux Court in order to ascertain the likelihood of its success; he there found that it was necessary to involve me in his scheme. My uncle's physician had said privately that Sir William could not live many months longer. Either from Gerald or my mother Montreuil learned this fact; and he was resolved, if possible, that, the family estates should not glide from all chance of his influence over them into your possession. Montreuil was literally as poor as the rigid law of his order enjoins its disciples to be; all his schemes required the disposal of large sums, and in no private source could he hope for such pecuniary power as he was likely to find in the coffers of any member of our family, yourself only excepted. It was this man's boast to want, and yet to command, all things; and he was now determined that if any craft, resolution, or guilt could occasion the transfer of my uncle's wealth from you to Gerald or to myself, it should not be wanting.