I ask your pardon, sir, Ap Rees replied; I should have gone on to say, that after two days travelling my sister was set down at a lone cottage, where she believed herself at a considerable distance from the Abbey, when in fact the tour she had taken was projected purposely to deceive her into that persuasion. After a few days passed in perfect solitude Sir David Owen appeared as a visitor to the lady of the cottage, when by their joint contrivances, too horrible to relate, they first succeeded in depriving my unhappy sister of her reason, and then accomplished their infernal triumph over her innocence. In this state of mental derangement she was kept for some time, not totally devoid of short intervals of recollection, in one of which she thinks she saw you, sir; but probably it was only her fancy, for there is no road, that could have led you to the house. I have reason to believe she is not mistaken, John replied! but no matter. I can now anticipate in some degree the tragic end of your afflicting narrative. Sir David Owen has left the kingdom, and made no provision for your sister’s comfort--she is destitute, distracted, dying--your father is old, blind and broken-hearted, and you are young, torn with rage, burning for revenge, and perhaps not in a capacity to furnish those medical and immediate aids, which the pitiable situation of your suffering sister unintermittingly demands. I take all that upon myself: I’ll do it instantly without delay: The victim of man’s villainy shall not want a friend. Nancy Ap Rees, the blushing Innocent, whom I supported in my arms, and was insulted for my officiousness, shall now, in the last stage of her distress, and to the last moment of her life, find my unqualified and full support: therefore lead me to her directly wheresoever she is--If in town, let us hasten to her on foot; if out of town, I have horses ready for myself and you--set out at once! CHAPTER VIII. _Our Hero visits the Daughter of Robin Ap Rees in her Distress._ As our hero was following Ap Rees to the street door of Mrs. Jennings’s house, Amelia met him in the passage. I am going with this young man, he said, upon a matter of business, that may keep me some time--but why are you alarmed, Amelia? there is no cause for it, I assure you: I only go to serve a friend--I am satisfied, she replied, I ask no questions; farewell! In a poor little tenement, the habitation of a widow-woman, in the outskirts of the town, young Robin Ap Rees had a lodging room, and in that room there was a bed, wherein our benevolent young hero horror-struck beheld an emaciated delirious creature, bound down with straps; the ruin of a beauteous form; the wreck, which villainy had made of reason; a modest unsoiled maiden once, whose purity nothing but poisonous drugs could overthrow; a spectacle to rend the heart of man, and make an angel weep. I cannot stand it, John exclaimed. Open the window: give me air, or I shall sink outright.