"I do not well know what I might have done," replied the gipsy, "but I think not. What use would it have been to me to destroy the son of one who had loved and cherished me? He had committed an awful crime, it is true--but I was not the avenger. Besides, I knew that vengeance, in its intensity tenfold more terrible than aught that man could inflict, was in his heart already,--that there was a serpent eating it up,--that the mighty, the almighty Avenger of all crimes was there in his terrors, and that every hour of his after-existence would be constant judgment and continual death. No, no! on my life, I did not so much hate as pity him. At night, after I had been removed from the justice room, I heard the door of the chamber, in which they had confined me, open, and Sir William Ryder came in with a light. He was a fine-hearted man, though he had been misled; and although the real murderer had shown himself but little shaken, yet through the whole of my examination he, Sir William Ryder, had been agitated, as I could see, to his very soul. Both he and the other, however, whether to make me a friend or what matters little, had done all they could to soften the hardness of old Squire Arden, as he was called; but Sir William now came to me to see what I did know, and how far they could trust me. It was a difficult task; and had he gone about it as cunningly as some would have done, he might have failed with me. But he was too much moved for that. He spoke kindly to me, however, and told me that Lord Dewry was very much interested for me, and would take care of me, and I told him at once to bid Lord Dewry take care of himself, for his was the case of danger, and not mine. So then he said that he saw I knew more than I had spoken, and that Lord Dewry was grateful to me. 'Call him not by a title that is not his,' I answered; 'for I know that the patent of their nobility bears, that if any of the family, judged according to law, be found guilty of a felony, he and his children are to be considered dead, their line extinct, and the next heir to claim as if they were not.' He answered that that mattered not, for that his friend had not been found guilty of any felony, nor ever would; and that he had only to say, if I would quit the kingdom, till he gave me leave to return, he would secure me the sum of one thousand pounds directly, and a pension for my life. I said I would think of it, and tell him when I was at liberty; and I was very soon after set free. Sir William Ryder did not fail to find me out, however; and it was agreed between us that I should go; and that he should meet me at the sea-port where I embarked, and there give me the money.