"When I awoke, I found that nobleman hanging over me, bathing my temples. He compelled me to drink a glass of wine; and I soon recovered full consciousness of the miseries of my condition. Starting from the half-embrace in which Lord Dunstable had clasped me, I surveyed him with horror. 'Do I frighten you, Lydia?' he exclaimed. 'I must confess that our meeting is a strange one. The old woman sent to tell me that she had a prize; but I little expected to find you here.'—'My presence in this house of infamy, my lord,' I answered, 'is one of the links in that chain of degradation of which you forged the first link. To you I owe all the disgrace and all the sorrow that I have endured. Not contented with my ruin, you deprived me of my brother.'—'Come, Lydia, this is absurd,' he cried. 'In the first place, a young female who meets a gentleman and walks with him in Parks or elsewhere, must not expect to escape the usual consequences. Secondly, your brother challenged me, like a rash and headstrong young fellow as he was: I sent him due warning by my second that I was certain to shoot him; but he would not take good advice, and I _did_ shoot him.'—'And had you no regard for me at that moment?' I asked.—'Egad!' he replied, 'I only thought of myself. I fancied that if I did not shoot him, he might perform that good office for me; and so I was resolved not to give him a second chance.'—'Surely you cannot be in your senses, my lord,' I exclaimed, 'to talk of so serious a matter in such a flippant style?'—'Come, let us understand each other, Lydia,' he said. 'I did not come to such a house as this to receive a lesson in morals. Do you wish me to remain here with you until to-morrow?'—'No: a thousand times _no_,' I replied. 'Your hand is red with the blood of my poor brother.'—'Very well, Lydia,' he answered coolly; 'then I will take myself off as quietly as I came. But for old acquaintance' sake I must do the thing handsomely.'—I heard his observation, the flippant tone of which made me avert my head from him in disgust; and I did not therefore see why he lingered for a few moments. At length he left the room, saying, 'Bye, bye, Liddy;' and when the door closed behind him, he began to hum an opera-tune, as he descended the stairs.