Completely overpowered and amazed at this recital, Lewis, desiring to be alone with his own thoughts, obtained from Sam Jones a promise of the strictest secrecy in regard to the affair, and having liberally rewarded him for his discreet behaviour, dismissed him. He then, concealing the pistol in his pocket, withdrew to the privacy of his own apartment, and locking the door, sat down to collect his ideas. At first he could scarcely realise the fact with which he had become acquainted. True, he had suspected that it was from Lord Bellefield’s hand that he had received his wound, for he had previously observed the butt of a pistol protruding from a pocket in his lordship’s greatcoat, his attention being particularly called to the fact by the eagerness with which its owner immediately hastened to conceal it more effectually. Still, he had believed that he had been wounded by an accident, and that the shot had been fired with the intention of disabling Hardy, in whose capture Lord Bellefield appeared, for some mysterious reason, to be deeply interested. The account he had just received proved that this was evidently not the case, and Lewis could only conjecture that at the moment Lord Bellefield was about to shoot Hardy some fiend had suggested to him the opportunity of an easy revenge on the man he hated, and that, in an impulse of ungovernable malice, he had altered the direction of the pistol. Rising and opening his dressing-case, Lewis took from a secret drawer the ball which had been extracted from his shoulder, and drawing the pistol out of his pocket, tried it; it fitted the barrel to a nicety. Replacing it, he muttered, “There is then _no_ doubt.” He paused, but immediately resumed, “ ’Tis well; he has now filled up the measure of his guilt; the time is come to balance the account.” His intention at that moment was to seek out Lord Bellefield, upbraid him with his treachery, threaten to expose him, and demand as a right that he should afford him satisfaction, forcing him by some means to meet him on the following morning. But even when carried away by passion, Lewis was not utterly forgetful of the feelings of others, and his friendship for Leicester and for Annie, consideration for the General in his present situation, and the interest he took in Walter, rose up before him, and he exclaimed--