"I lived for many years in a country where the practice was constant, where all that belongs to rifle-shooting was a necessary accomplishment-- a country in which man had often to contend against the wild beast. In civilised states, man himself supplies the place of the wild beast--but we don't hunt him!--Lord Lilburne" (and this was added with a smiling and disdainful whisper), "you must practise a little more." But, disregardful of the advice, from that day Lord Lilburne's morning occupation was gone. He thought no longer of a duel with Vaudemont. As soon as the sportsman had left him, he bade Dykeman take up the pistols, and walked straight home into the library, where Robert Beaufort, who was no sportsman, generally spent his mornings. He flung himself into an arm-chair, and said, as he stirred the fire with unusual vehemence,-- "Beaufort, I'm very sorry I asked you to invite Vaudemont. He's a very ill-bred, disagreeable fellow!" Beaufort threw down his steward's account-book, on which he was employed, and replied,-- "Lilburne, I have never had an easy moment since that man has been in the house. As he was your guest, I did not like to speak before, but don't you observe--you must observe--how like he is to the old family portraits? The more I have examined him, the more another resemblance grows upon me. In a word," said Robert, pausing and breathing hard, "if his name were not Vaudemont--if his history were not, apparently, so well known, I should say--I should swear, that it is Philip Morton who sleeps under this roof!" "Ha!" said Lilburne, with an earnestness that surprised Beaufort, who expected to have heard his brother-in-law's sneering sarcasm at his fears; "the likeness you speak of to the old portraits did strike me; it struck Marsden, too, the other day, as we were passing through the picture-gallery; and Marsden remarked it aloud to Vaudemont. I remember now that he changed countenance and made no answer. Hush! hush! hold your tongue, let me think--let me think. This Philip--yes--yes--I and Arthur saw him with--with Gawtrey--in Paris--" "Gawtrey! was that the name of the rogue he was said to--" "Yes--yes--yes. Ah! now I guess the meaning of those looks--those words," muttered Lilburne between his teeth. "This pretension to the name of Vaudemont was always apocryphal--the story always but half believed--the invention of a woman in love with him--the claim on your property is made at the very time he appears in England. Ha! Have you a newspaper there? Give it me. No! 'tis not in this paper. Ring the bell for the file!" "What's the matter? you terrify me!" gasped out Mr. Beaufort, as he rang the bell. "Why! have you not seen an advertisement repeated several times within the last month?" "I never read advertisements; except in the county paper, if land is to be sold."