"No, _no_, no! you have not," roared the old man, firing up again. "You have to beg my pardon, and tell me that this folly is at an end." "I'll beg your pardon, father," said Septimus sternly, "and I do ask it for anything I have done amiss; but I have pledged my word to the woman I have loved these ten years." And again there was the look of proud elation on Septimus Hardon's countenance. "And you are going to London, eh?" said Octavius. "To London," said Septimus calmly. The old man frowned, pressed his lips tightly together, and, holding Agnes firmly by her shoulder, he stood pointing with one hand towards the door. "Then go!" he said; "go--go!" "O, Septimus!" cried Agnes in appealing tones,--"uncle!" "You're mad, Septimus Hardon," said the old man coldly. "Mad--stark mad: a private asylum, Septimus--an asylum--mad! You're mad--stark mad! Go!" Volume One, Chapter III. FURTHER INTRODUCTIONS. In the faint light of early morning, some ten years after the scene described in the last chapter, at that cold dank hour when the struggle is going on between night and day, and the former is being slowly and laboriously conquered,--when Chancery-lane looked at its worst, and the passed-away region of Bennett's-rents more sordid and desolate than ever. The gas-lamps still glimmered in the street, while the solitary light at the end of the Rents yet burned dimly, and as if half-destroyed by mephitic vapour, when the door of Number 27 was opened, closed loudly, and a man clattered heavily over the broken pavement, creating an unnecessary amount of noise as he slowly made his way out through the narrow archway into the street, but watching on either side with observant eye the while. It seemed darker when he reached the Lane, where, after glancing hastily up and down for a minute, he softly thrust off his boots,--a pair of heavy lace-ups,--and then, taking them in his hand, he ran lightly back, with the stooping gait and eager hound-like air of some savage beast on the trail of its prey. But the next moment he was at the door he had quitted, had opened it softly and slipped in, ignorant that a face at the third-floor window opposite was watching his movements with looks yet keener than his own.