Whether from some sudden tremor or astonishment, it cannot be ascertained, nor could the ruffian himself account for it, he discharged a pistol, evidently without aim, and Robin as instantly struck it from his hand. It was this report that had so terrified Barbara. But there was another ear upon which it struck--in the solitude of that wild room in Cecil Place. It sent the blood rushing to his evil brain;--he clasped his hands in exultation; for the death-sound was to him the voice of security; and he prayed--(that such wretches are allowed to pray!)--that the bullet was at that moment wading in the life-stream of the Buccaneer. CHAPTER III. Brother of Fear, more gaily clad, The merrier fool o' th' two, yet quite as mad; Sire of Repentance! child of fond Desire! That blow'st the chymic's and the lover's fire, Leading them still insensibly on By the strange witchcraft of "anon." COWLEY AGAINST HOPE. To account for Walter De Guerre's sudden departure, we must revert to the time when, silent and solitary, he shaded the glare of the night-lamp from his eyes, and threw himself along the black oak form to meditate and mourn over events that appeared to him, at least, now beyond his own control. Whatever others may think as to our bringing on our own misfortunes, we hardly ever agree in the hard task of self-condemnation--a task of peculiar difficulty to the young and the ardent. They may even be inwardly dissatisfied with themselves, yet they care not to express it openly, lest they may be thought little of;--a timidity natural in youth, and arising, not unfrequently, from diffidence in its own powers. Age may improve the understanding, but it chills the affections; and though the young are ever fitter to invent than to judge, and abler for execution than for counsel; yet, on the other hand, they are happily free from that knowledge of the world which first intoxicates, and then, too frequently, leaves its votaries with enfeebled heads and palsied hands. Had not Walter been schooled in adversity, he would have been as haughty and as unyielding a cavalier as ever drew sword in the cause of the unhappy Stuarts; but his boyhood had been passed amid privations, and they had done the work of wisdom. As in books, so it is in life, we profit more by the afflictions of the righteous Job, than by the felicities of the luxurious Solomon. The only break of summer sunshine in his short but most varied career was the time he had spent with Constance Cecil; nor had he in the least exaggerated his feelings in saying that "the memory of the days passed in her society bad been the soother and brightener of his existence." He sorrowed as much at the idea that she was sacrificing herself from some mysterious cause, as at the termination his affection was likely to suffer. That so high souled a being was about to make such a sacrifice from worldly motives, was, he