The earl took them up, regarded them for a few moments, changed colour, but shook his head with a negative gesture, as he laid them once more on the table. “This handwriting, then?” renewed the judge, in a yet more impressive and painful voice; and he pointed to the letters. Mauleverer raised one of them, and held it between his face and the lamp, so that whatever his features might have betrayed was hidden from his companion. At length he dropped the letter with an affected nonchalance, and said,-- “Ah, I know the writing even at this distance of time; this letter is directed to you!” “It is; so are all these,” said Brandon, with the same voice of preternatural and strained composure. “They have come back to me after an absence of nearly twenty-five years; they are the letters she wrote to me in the days of our courtship” (here Brandon laughed scornfully),--“she carried them away with her, you know when; and (a pretty clod of consistency is woman!) she kept them, it seems, to her dying day.” The subject in discussion, whatever it might be, appeared a sore one to Mauleverer; he turned uneasily on his chair, and said at length,-- “Well, poor creature! these are painful remembrances, since it turned out so unhappily; but it was not our fault, dear Brandon. We were men of the world; we knew the value of--of women, and treated them accordingly!” “Right! right! right!” cried Brandon, vehemently, laughing in a wild and loud disdain, the intense force of which it would be in vain to attempt expressing. “Right! and, faith, my lord, I repine not, nor repent.” “So, so, that's well!” said Mauleverer, still not at his ease, and hastening to change the conversation. “But, my dear Brandon, I have strange news for you! You remember that fellow Clifford, who had the insolence to address himself to your adorable niece? I told you I suspected that long friend of his of having made my acquaintance somewhat unpleasantly, and I therefore doubted of Clifford himself. Well, my dear friend, this Clifford is--whom do you think?--no other than Mr. Lovett of Newgate celebrity!” “You do not say so!” rejoined Brandon, apathetically, as he slowly gathered his papers together and deposited them in a drawer. “Indeed it is true; and what is more, Brandon, this fellow is one of the very identical highwaymen who robbed me on my road from Bath. No doubt he did me the same kind office on my road to Mauleverer Park.” “Possibly,” said Brandon, who appeared absorbed in a revery. “Ay!” answered Mauleverer, piqued at this indifference. “But do you not see the consequences to your niece?” “My niece!” repeated Brandon, rousing himself. “Certainly. I grieve to say it, my dear friend,--but she was young, very young, when at Bath. She suffered this fellow to address her too openly. Nay,--for I will be frank,--she was suspected of being in love with him!”