If Horace Scarsdale had encountered his uncle there, the chances are that he would have found very little difficulty in betraying his "friend" and principal. The young man had miscalculated the magnitude of those affairs in which he had embroiled himself. _He_ knew well enough that there was nothing soft or sentimental, and not very much of human impressionable stuff in his own nature, but he did not know that a mind inaccessible to compassion or sympathy may still be desperately alive to all the selfish horrors of remorse and guilt, and that not even the promised income of a thousand a-year which he had forced from Mr. Pouncet's fears and hopes, or the expectation which he entertained of being able to persuade Amelia Stenhouse into an immediate marriage, could make him insensible to that dread horror of suspense in which he lived. There were no letters, no newspaper paragraphs, or country intimation of a sudden death--darkness and silence immovable had dropped like a veil over all that district which enclosed Marchmain. Every day and every night Horace could see that wild stretch of moorland brooding under its dismal sky; and there was scarcely a moment, sleeping or waking, in which his guilty imagination ceased to dwell in his father's lonely house. Had he met Colonel Sutherland in this miserable crisis of his affairs, the chances are that Horace would gladly have given a sop to his fevered conscience by telling all he knew of Mr. Pouncet's fraud. As it was, possessed with a restlessness which he could not subdue, he returned to Harliflax, the only _other_ place in the world where he could find even a temporary interest--resisting, with all the strength he still could muster, the dread curiosity which drew him to Marchmain. Mr. Pouncet accordingly was alone when Sir John Armitage, the Colonel, and Roger made an unexpected descent upon him. There was nothing to frighten a good dissembler in the entire three of them, honest sincere souls each in their way, who came here with suspicion, it is true, yet had a natural habit of believing what was said to them. Mr. Pouncet played his part very well. Knowing that his letter itself was out of their power, and could not be brought against him, he made his defence lightly. A lady's mistake, a thing most easily explained:--he had indeed written to his friend Stenhouse about some private matters of business, and his wife had made a woman's blunder about it, knowing nothing of business, and supposing, of course, that there could be no Musgrave in the world but her son. Of course Sir John might be perfectly assured that he should take every possible step to ascertain anything affecting Mr. Musgrave's interests--indeed, was not the late Mr. Musgrave his client? And now especially, when his own honour was involved, his exertions should be redoubled; he had already sent his confidential clerk--