"Then, depend upon it, the whole was a planned thing. They have taken some wild scheme into their heads, and they are gone to execute it." "Impossible!" exclaimed Sir Ambrose. "I see no impossibility in the business," resumed the duke. "I think the case is clear. They did not know how to get off decently; and so Edric pretended to quarrel with you and me, to give the thing a face." "I cannot fancy Edric guilty of such meanness," cried Sir Ambrose passionately. "I don't think the matter admits of a single doubt. But what do you think on the subject, Father Morris?" "Men devoted to austere professions like myself," replied the priest, without raising his eyes from the ground, "know but little of what is passing in the world. Thus, though my body be no longer shrouded in the gloom of a cloister, my mind remains still too much abstracted from the busy scenes around me, for me to be a competent judge of the effect of human passions." "Och, then, ye are very right to say nothin' about them," cried Father Murphy; "for though I'm in a passion every day of my life, I nevher know what to say when I begin to talk of it. And so I jist think it's the wisest way to holdth my tongue." Neither Sir Ambrose nor the duke made any reply; and after settling that they should commence their journey on the following morning, they separated. CHAPTER VIII. The journey of the duke and Sir Ambrose to London had nothing in it to distinguish it from hundreds of other journeys, and they did not meet with a single adventure worthy of being recorded. It happened by one of those singular coincidences in real life, which would be called improbable in a novel, that Mr. Montagu's mansion adjoined that of the duke, Mrs. Montagu having, like most of the _parvenu_ genus, a most violent _penchant_ for the neighbourhood of the great; perhaps, in the hope that gentility might be infectious, and that she might catch a little by being near it. Both houses were in the Strand, which was, as we have before stated, in those days the most fashionable part of London, and both had beautiful gardens shelving down to the Thames. Mrs. Montagu received her brother-in-law with all that awkward overstrained civility, with which persons raised above their original grade in society, generally endeavour to show their respect to those whom they consider as their superiors; whilst Mr. Montagu welcomed him with warm affection, and presented his daughter Clara to her uncle with all the fondness of a parent.