Time, however, had now altered such feelings; he was accustomed to remorse, but no time can harden the heart to fear; and the first imagination which crossed his mind, when, at the end of twenty years, he again saw the gipsy, was to destroy him. The reader may recollect a conversation in the beginning of this work, wherein Pharold detailed the particulars of an interview he had had with the peer; and it may easily be conceived, that from that interview Lord Dewry perceived at once that the moment was come when he must try his strength with those who had the power to injure him, and silence them for ever, or yield for ever to his fate; and with a strong determination, but a mind fearfully agitated, he instantly resolved to crush those he feared, if human ingenuity, backed by wealth, and power, and a daring disposition, could accomplish such an object. Such had been the state of his mind when he so unexpectedly visited the house of Mrs. Falkland, and found new cause for apprehension in the conversation of Colonel Manners. But his coming thither had not for its sole object to meet and welcome his newly-returned son. He had learned, by instant and close inquiry after the gipsy had left him, that parties of his race had been seen lying in the neighbourhood of Morley Wood, with the view, it was supposed, of poaching on the open and ill-protected grounds in that district; and suspecting, from his conversation with Pharold, that on the refusal he had given, Sir William Ryder himself might return to England, he hastened over to his sister's house, which lay within a few miles of his property of Dimden, in order, if possible, to pursue means of destroying the actual witness of his crime, before the arrival of the only other person who even suspected it. Let it not be supposed--although there were in reality no means at which Lord Dewry would now have hesitated to effect his purpose--that he deliberately, and boldly, and undisguisedly proposed to his own heart to bring about the gipsy's death. No, no: the great power of evil is too well aware how horrible his naked suggestions are, not to furnish them with a veil, flimsy enough, it is true, but still sufficient to cover some part of their deformity. No! Lord Dewry only proposed--at least, he cheated himself into thinking so--to detect the gipsy or his comrades in some unlawful exploit, which might give an excuse for removing them for ever from the country, and at the same time might render any evidence they might tender against himself, not only suspicious, but almost inadmissible.