The Secretary paused, and for a few moments Mr. Hastings remained gazing down in silence, like a man utterly confounded. Vernon thought he had touched him home; but the emotions in the prisoner's bosom, though very violent, were very different from those which the Secretary attributed to him. He remembered the conversation well, but he remembered also that the only one who, besides Sir John Fenwick, was with him at the moment, was his own child. I will not dwell upon his feelings, but they absorbed him entirely, till the Secretary went on, saying--"Not satisfied with such slender information, Mr. Hastings, the government caused that unhappy criminal, Sir John Fenwick, to be asked, after his fate was fixed, if he recollected your having used those words to him, and he replied, 'something very like them.'" "And I reply the same," exclaimed Philip Hastings, sternly. "I did use those words, or words very like them. But, sir, they were in connection with others, which, had they been repeated likewise, would have taken all criminal application from them. May I be permitted to look at that letter in your hand, to see how much was really told, how much suppressed?" "I have read it all to you," said Mr. Vernon, "but you may look at it if you please," and he handed it to him across the table. Philip Hastings spread it out before him, trembling violently, and then drew another letter from his pocket, and laid them side by side. He ran his eye from one to the other for a moment or two, and then sunk slowly down, fainting upon the floor. While a turnkey and one of the messengers raised him, and some efforts were made to bring him back to consciousness, Mr. Vernon walked round the table and looked at the two letters which were still lying on it. He compared them eagerly, anxiously. The handwriting of the one was very similar to that of the other, and in the beginning of that which Mr. Hastings had taken from his pocket, the Secretary found the words, "My dear father." It was signed, "Emily Hastings;" and Vernon instantly comprehended the nature of the terrible emotion he had witnessed. He was really, as I have said, a kind and humane man, and he felt very much for the prisoner, who was speedily brought to himself again, and seated in a chair before the table. "Perhaps, Mr. Hastings," said Vernon, "we had better not protract this conversation to-day. I will see you again to-morrow, at this hour, if you would prefer that arrangement."