The rest of the sentence was interrupted by a loud, despairing cry, and then, with a heavy thud, Wilfred Manwaring fell senseless upon the floor. “I always feared I had committed an error,” said the Heidelberg Doctor, “when I admitted to ‘Ehrenbreitstein’ the son of a mere commoner, but I certainly never expected to find a thief amongst my pupils.” “I don’t believe it,” cried the Duke of Ribblesdale; “there’s some villainy here.” “And I certainly could not have credited it,” said old Mr. Wilmot, fidgetting about--“such a fine, open-countenanced young gentleman, too; I certainly never _could_ have credited it.” “And I,” said Cubleigh, “never would have believed my governor would have sent me to a tutor’s where there was a thief in the house. And, now I come to think of it, Manwaring went over to Ossington on Saturday, and bought a new gun.” “Ha!” cried Dr. Massenger, “that is important.” “By Jove, Cubleigh,” exclaimed the Duke, “I think you are a beastly cad yourself to talk so, when the poor dear fellow is lying on the ground dead, for all we know to the contrary. Come, is no one going to help me to lift him up upon the bed?” and so saying, he began to raise the helpless body. But the Doctor and Cubleigh stood aloof. “Let me help,” said old Mr. Wilmot, kindly, and the two lifted up the unconscious frame, and laid it tenderly upon the bed, Doctor Massenger strutting by their side, like a disconcerted turkeycock, but never offering to assist. He was thinking how this unpleasant affair would affect the prestige of his establishment, and of what the stern and rigidly conscientious Lord Guttleborough would say when he came to hear of the conduct of the fellow-pupil of his son. A medical man chanced to be in the village, and was soon in attendance; but so great was the shock that his nervous system had received, that it was long before Wilfred recovered consciousness. “Where am I?” he sighed at last, opening his beautiful violet eyes, and trying to raise himself on the bed. “Oh! I remember”--and then he sank back again in utter weakness and prostration. CHAPTER VIII. A BLASTED LIFE.