"Very like a friend to pitch him over the cliff!" answered the constable. "Howsumdever, the magistrates know all about it, and you had better wait and talk to them, for if you talk more to me I shall send down for the handcuffs: a fool I was for not bringing them with me. We shall sit up with ye by turns, for I am not going to let ye get off, master, you may depend upon it." Dudley only replied by a contemptuous smile, and, seating himself in a chair, he gave himself up to thought, while the one constable took a place opposite, and the other retired and locked the door. For nearly two hours Dudley remained meditating over the strange turn which had taken place in his fate; and as he reflected upon various circumstances which had occurred during the evening, his situation began to assume a more serious aspect than it had at first presented. Not that he supposed, for one moment, he was in the slightest danger, for his consciousness of innocence was too great to admit of his believing that, when his whole conduct was explained, even a suspicion would rest upon him; but he recollected the violent dispute which he had had with Lord Hadley in the morning, in the presence of several witnesses, and also called to mind that when he had gone out after dinner, in order to fulfil his promises to Eda, he had been followed and overtaken by Lord Hadley, and that the first part, at least, of their conversation had been carried on in a sharp and angry tone. He remembered, too, that they had met several people, and that though in the end the young nobleman had seemed somewhat touched by his remonstrances, and surprised and vexed at his decided resignation of all farther responsibility regarding his conduct, no one had witnessed the more moderate and kindly manner in which they had parted, or could prove that they had parted at all before the fatal occurrence of which he had such vague information. The attempt to extract anything more from the constable he saw would be in vain, though he thirsted for intelligence; and his thoughts, after dwelling for some time upon his own case, naturally turned to the unhappy youth who had been cut off at so early a period, in the midst of a career of folly and vice. He could not help sighing over such a result; for notwithstanding headstrong passions, and a certain degree of weakness of character, which would have prevented Lord Hadley from ever becoming a great man, Dudley had perceived some traits of goodness in his nature, which, under right direction, either by the care of wise and prudent friends, or by the chastening rod of adversity, might have been so guided as to render him an estimable and useful member of society. His mind reverted to his own young days, and he recollected wild schemes, rash enterprises, some faults and follies which he now greatly regretted; and he thought, "If I had gone on, the pampered child of prosperity, I might perhaps have been like him." He did himself injustice, it is