I then told him how it might be so managed as that there should be no danger in it at all. He thought for a little, and then he laughed to himself. "But, madam," he said, "suppose I do this for you safely and snugly. What reward am I to have for my trouble and risk?" "What do you think the business is worth?" He looked curiously in my face as if wondering how much he could safely say. Then he replied-- "I believe it is worth exactly twenty guineas." "I can spare no more than ten," I replied. "Well," he said, "ten guineas is a trifle indeed for so great a risk and so great a service. Still, if no more is to be had, and to oblige so sweet a young lady----" Here he held out a fat white hand, the fingers of which were curled as if from long habit in clutching guineas. I gave him five as an instalment, promising him the other five when the job was done. All being safely in train, I returned home to breakfast; but after breakfast I returned to the physician's house, and sat down in the lodge, so placed that I could see without being seen, and looked down the road. After the bell for morning prayers had stopped, I began to expect my friends. Sure enough the first who came into sight were my lord and Sir Miles, the former looking grave and earnest. A little while after them came a gentleman whom I knew to be one of the company at Epsom. He was alone. Now this was the most fortunate accident, because had the gentleman, who was none other than Harry's second, accompanied his principal, my plot had failed. But fortunately (as I learned afterwards) they missed each other in the town, and so set off alone. This, at the time, I knew not, being ignorant of the laws of the duello. And last there came along Harry himself, walking quickly as if afraid of being late. I gave a signal which had been agreed upon, and as he approached the house, the great gates were thrown open, and two strapping tall fellows, stepping quickly into the road, caught poor Harry (the would-be murderer) by the arms, ran a thick rope round him before he had time to cry out, and dragged him into the gates, so quickly, so strongly, and so resolutely, that he had not the least chance of making any resistance. Indeed, it was done in so workmanlike a fashion that it seemed as if the rogues had done the same thing dozens of times before. Heavens! To think that a man brought up so virtuously as Harry Temple, a young man of such excellent promise, so great a scholar, and one who had actually studied Theology, and attended the lectures of a Lady Margaret Professor, should, under any circumstances of life, abandon himself to language so wicked and a rage so overwhelming. Nothing ever surprised me so much as to hear that gentle scholar use such dreadful language, as bad as any that I had ever heard in the Fleet Market.