The reverend gentleman, however, had other views than those he held out to Lord Anophel, and presented himself to Anthelia with an aspect of great commiseration. He said he was an unwilling witness of his Lordship’s unjust proceedings, which he had done all in his power to prevent, and which had been carried into effect against his will. It was his firm intention to set her at liberty as soon as he could devise the means of doing so; but all the outlets of Alga Castle were so guarded that he had not yet been able to devise any feasible scheme for her escape; but it should be his sole study night and day to effect it. Anthelia thanked him for his sympathy, and asked why he could not give notice to her friends of her situation, which would accomplish the purpose at once. He replied that Lord Anophel already mistrusted him, and that if anything of the kind were done, however secretly he might proceed, the suspicion would certainly fall upon him, and that he should then be a ruined man, as all his worldly hopes rested on the Marquis of Agaric. Anthelia offered to make him the utmost compensation for the loss of the Marquis of Agaric’s favour; but he said that was impossible, unless she could make him a bishop, as the Marquis of Agaric would do. His plan, he said, must be to effect her liberation, without seeming to be himself in any way whatever concerned in it; and though he would willingly lose everything for her sake, yet he trusted she would not think ill of him for wishing to wait a few days, that he might try to devise the means of serving her without ruining himself. He continued his daily visits of sympathy, sometimes amusing her with a hopeful scheme, at others detailing with a rueful face the formidable nature of some unexpected obstacle, hinting continually at his readiness to sacrifice everything for her sake, lamenting the necessity of delay, and assuring her that in the meanwhile no evil should happen to her. He flattered himself that Anthelia, wearied out with the irksomeness of confinement, and the continual alternations of hope and disappointment, and contrasting the respectful tenderness of his manner with the disagreeable system of behaviour to which he had fashioned Lord Anophel, would at length come to a determination of removing all his difficulties by offering him her hand and fortune as a compensation for his anticipated bishopric. It was not, however, very long before Anthelia penetrated his design; but as she did not deem it prudent to come to a rupture with him at that time, she continued to listen to his daily details of plans and impediments, and allowed him to take to himself all the merit he seemed to assume for supplying her with music and books; though he expressed himself very much shocked at her asking him for Gibbon and Rousseau, whose works, he said, ought to be burned _in foro_ by the hands of _Carnifex_.