The next morning Warenne’s arrest became generally known; and Henry, anxious that his sister should not be informed of it by an indifferent person, rode over to Epworth with the news. He found her pale and agitated (for since her last interview with Warenne, she had given fuller indulgence to her feelings, legitimatised, as it were, by his avowal of his love for her), eager to learn the success of the troops at Fisherton, and scarcely allowing herself to doubt of its being such as to call forth approbation upon him who had commanded them; yet dreading, she knew not why, some harsh measure from General Mapleton. Hope had predominated over fear, and she was bitterly disappointed by Henry’s intelligence. For a moment she gave way to grief; but recovering herself— “Henry,” said she, “thank you, thank you for coming to me at this moment. I need not now tell you how truly you have read my heart; but I must not be selfish. Think no more of me, but of him on whom the whole weight of the blow has fallen; it will crush him, I fear, he is so sensitive to even the semblance of dishonour.” Henry strove to comfort his sister. “His friends must support him,” added she; “they must not let that gallant spirit sink.” Her brother promised to do his best. He assured her that she viewed matters too despondingly; that a man was not disgraced by being put on his trial, but only by the condemnation of the court; that he would see Warenne on his return, and endeavour to speak comfort to him, though he must confess, that as yet his ideas on that head threatened to concentrate themselves in the simple Americanism, “G—d pretty particularly d—n” General Mapleton. Adelaide smiled amid her tears at Henry’s projected mode of consolation; and he, glad to find that his nonsense had succeeded in calling forth a smile, went off with a lightened heart to fulfil his commission; a commission, as he then thought, easy of execution, but which appeared to him in a very different light, when he became aware of the irritated state of Warenne’s mind, and his almost morbid apprehensiveness of disgrace.