This last statement, although a little highly coloured, as Mrs. Arabel's descriptions usually were, was really not far from the truth. It did almost seem as if the baronet was so transported with passion as to be capable of any enormity. What the law permitted him to do in the way of oppression, that, of course, he practised to the uttermost; his morality, never very diffuse, had concentrated itself upon one position--the defence of the game and trespass laws. His keepers were exhorted to increased vigilance; the worst characters in the parish were constituted his spies. Every night, it was now the custom of their lord and master to go the rounds in his own preserves, and visit the outposts, to see that the sentinels did their duty. He employed no Warnings or Trespass Boards in Fairburn Park; his object was not to deter, but to catch the contemners of the sacred rights of property in the very act. The pursuit of his life had become man-hunting. I write that word without any reference to Marmaduke Heath, for, indeed, at that time I thought that Sir Massingberd had given up all hope of recovering possession of his nephew. A considerable period had now elapsed since the young man's convalescence; and yet the baronet had taken no steps to compel his return. He had written, indeed, to Marmaduke a letter of anything but a conciliatory character, and calculated to re-arouse the lad's most morbid fears; but Mr. Harvey Gerard had intercepted the dispatch, and returned it with an answer of his own composition. He had stated briefly the results of the late conference at the Dovecot respecting his young guest; he had reiterated his intention of bringing, in a court of justice, the gravest charges against the baronet, in case of any legal molestation from him; and he had finished with a personal recommendation to that gentleman to rest satisfied with the enjoyment of the allowance that was supposed to go to the maintenance of his nephew. Epistolary communication by hand was rendered impracticable, on the part of the baronet, by the removal of the Dovecot household to town.