"And Georgiana was but eighteen, I think, at the time," interrupted Sir Ralph Walsingham. "She certainly experienced a dreadful fright; and although, thank God! her reason is as unimpaired as ever it was, still we cannot say that the sudden shock might not have produced some strange effect which may probably account for the otherwise inexplicable whimsicality—for I can denominate it nothing else——" "Oh! I thank you, my dear Sir Ralph, for this explanation," cried Lord Ellingham, in the joy of reviving hope. "Yes—I see it all: your niece experienced a shock which has produced a species of idiosyncratic effect upon her; but the constant kindness—the unwearied attention of one who loves her, and whom she loves in return, will restore her mind to its vigorous and healthy condition. To-morrow will I visit her again:—Oh! how unkind—how ungenerous of me to remain away so long!" There was a pause, during which Arthur gave way to all the bright allurements of the pleasing vision which he now conjured up to his imagination. At length Sir Ralph Walsingham felt the silence to be irksome and awkward; and he ventured to break it. "We were talking just now, my lord," he said, "of the famous highwayman known as the Black Mask. He disappeared from Hampshire very suddenly; and the old women declared that his time being out, he was carried off by the Devil, who had protected him against all the devices and snares imagined by the authorities to capture him." "And perhaps the highwayman who robbed Lady Hatfield the other day," observed Lord Ellingham, "may be the very one who rendered himself so notorious in Hampshire a few years ago?" "Your lordship judges by the fact that the scoundrel who stopped my niece near Hounslow wore a black mask," said the baronet; "but the generality of robbers on the high roads adopt that mode of disguise. Thank heaven! public depredators of the kind are becoming very scarce in this country!" In such conversation did the nobleman and the baronet while away the time until eleven o'clock, when the latter took his leave, and Arthur retired to his chamber to dream of the charming but incomprehensible lady who had obtained such empire over his soul. CHAPTER XVII. THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER.—JACOB. On the same evening that the interview between the Earl of Ellingham and Sir Ralph Walsingham took place, as narrated in the preceding chapter, the following scene occurred at the house of Toby Bunce in Earl Street, Seven Dials. Mrs. Bunce was alone in the dirty, dingy back room, which could not be said to be lighted, but merely redeemed from total darkness, by the solitary candle that stood on the table; and she was busily employed in lighting the fire.