Sir Roger Millington turned very pale. A light--a fearful light--had broken in upon him, and how far it served to guide his suspicions aright matters little. He was a man of few scruples, and vice and misery had both contributed to harden his heart; for though the uses of adversity maybe sweet when acting on a virtuous disposition, yet I am afraid that in this good world of ours the back of that great felon Vice only gets callous under the lash of affliction. Sir Roger Millington, however, had, as we have said, but few scruples of any kind; yet this thing that Lord Dewry now proposed to him was a step beyond the point at which he had arrived in all the course of evil and of folly that he had hitherto pursued. He had fought and had slain men in another man's quarrel, but in doing so he had perilled his own life, and the corporal risk had seemed in some degree to balance the moral culpability; but now he was asked to say and do things which, without any danger to himself, would conduct another to an ignominious death,--one against whom he had no enmity, whom he had never, perhaps, beheld, and of whose real guilt there was in his bosom many a terrible doubt. He felt that it was a fearful and an awful thing that he was called upon to do, and, in despite of the absence of all moral principle--of twenty years' hardening in vice, and of a long training in degradation and dishonour--he turned pale, he hesitated; and, forgetting all restraint, rose from his seat and walked once or twice up and down the room in evident agitation. Lord Dewry saw how far he had committed himself. He saw that, notwithstanding all his caution, his words, having been spoken to one whom habitual vice had rendered familiar with all the wiles of crime, might have put his suspicions on a track from which they could never be withdrawn, and that although Sir Roger had him not, indeed, in his power, as the gipsy had, yet that no sacrifice would be too great to force him on to acts which would make his co-operation irretrievable. He suffered him then to pace the room for a single minute; and then rising, he placed himself opposite to him, and laid his hand on that of the knight. "Sir Roger," he said, "I am inclined to do much for you, but you know service must have service in return." "But tell me, tell me, my lord," exclaimed the other, with some vehemence, "do you really believe that the note you speak of was ever in the possession of the gipsy?"