Such a probability was omitted from his calculations. How, in fact, was he to conjecture that Nathan Gomer, having perused his physiognomy carefully, while Vivian was replying to the charges he had made against him, had formed a conclusion most unfavourable to him; that, in short, the shrewd little man had believed he read in the workings of his features a strong determination to commit an evil deed, by which Vivian directly and Flora indirectly would be made to suffer. Yet such was the fact; and Nathan Gomer was not the man to pause in doubt when he suspected evil. Having several agents in his pay, he instructed one upon whom he could rely, and from that moment Colonel Mires went nowhere abroad without an unknown attendant, of whose existence he was unconscious, but who dogged his footsteps with untiring pertinacity. The scheme of the abduction was, therefore, by the revelations of his agent gradually unfolded to Nathan Gomer; who let the arrangements of the Colonel proceed until the culminating point was at hand; when he communicated with young Vivian; and placed in his hands the power--as he calculated--of appearing upon the scene at a moment of vital importance to Flora; and of appearing once more before old Wilton as the saviour of his daughter’s honour as he had been of her life. Hal Vivian was visited by Nathan Gomer as he was making preparation to leave England; to fulfil a short engagement offered him on high terms in the United States, the acceptance of which had been pressed, upon him by the first manufacturing goldsmith in England. The communication he received altered his plan, although it happened that he reached Harleydale too late to prevent Flora being carried off; but yet in time to save the life of Wilton. Thus it fell out. Upon reaching the village of Harleydale; he had an interview with Gomer’s agent, who told him that a close carriage belonging to Colonel Mires was in a bye-lane contiguous to Harleydale park; and the Colonel himself was somewhere up in the woods; lying in wait; it was supposed; for Flora; in order to carry his project into execution. It was arranged that the agent should watch the carriage; and Hal should go up into the woods and hunt up the Colonel. The result of this arrangement has been seen. He saved old Wilton from the murderous weapon of Chewkle, and the Colonel got safely off with Flora, for the agent had to rush back to the village, when he saw Flora conveyed senseless to the carriage, to mount a horse--already provided--to follow the vehicle, that he might, at the first place where assistance was to be obtained, stop the further progress of the outrage upon Miss Wilton’s liberty. He left a note for Vivian, who obtained from it information of the direction he was to pursue; and though not much used to riding, his horsemanship, under the impulse which was almost maddening, would have done honour to a steeple-chase rider.