And yet such is human nature, the very next flash made him put his hands before his eyes and turn somewhat pale. "It is awfully vivid," he said. "This artillery of heaven, men think, is sent to punish the guilty alone: the immediate retribution of the Almighty. If so, why does it choose its aim so lucklessly? I have seen the loveliest and the purest struck by it; the murderer, the villain, and the false prophet pass through it unscathed. But I will go, lest a worse fate than that of the lightning should reach me. Farewell, old man!" he continued, looking at the couch on which Sir Arthur Adelon was lying; "after many years' sojourn on this earth together, you and I may never meet again. If friendship unvarying, and services not to be doubted, and counsels ever for the best, could have done aught with you, you should have had them, nay, you have had them. But you were too weak and idle to profit even by experience. Instead of full trust, you gave half confidence; instead of full obedience, you gave nothing but a questioning support; and the church must triumph wherever it sets its foot, or the day of its destruction is arrived." With this unvarying maxim of the Roman church, he turned away and left him, placing the papers he had brought farther on the table, with the claws of the inkstand to hold them safely down. He retired by the same means which had given him entrance; and without the slightest appearance of anxiety or haste, opened the first door and shut it behind him, then pulled back the private door which afforded a communication between his room and that of the baronet, and ascended a flight of steps which led to the chambers above. All remained still and quiet below; and in a few minutes, proceeding into the stable-yard, Mr. Filmer had mounted, without the slightest opposition, a horse which had been set apart for his own use while at Brandon, and was riding away, but in a direction different to that which Edgar and his friend had taken. CHAPTER XLIV.