Suddenly, as it were, we behold the young man, whose sentiments were so noble and generous while he deemed himself to be a mere civilian having every exertion to make in order to rise to eminence,--suddenly we behold him seized with an insatiable ambition, now that a coronet appeared to be actually within his reach. But did he contemplate the immediate adoption of measures to force his father to wrest the title and estates of the Earldom from Arthur? We know not all that passed through the mind of Charles Hatfield on this fatal night:--we can, however, aver that having fully perused the valuable documents which had made to him such important revelations, he did not restore them to the secret recess where he had found them, but secured them about his own person. Previously to quitting the library, he closed the sliding panel, and replaced the _Annual Register_ in such a manner that the shelf did not appear to have been disturbed. The west-end clocks were striking three, and the light of a July morning was streaming through the windows of the mansion, when Charles Hatfield retired to his own chamber. His first care was to consign to his writing-desk the documents and letters which he now considered to be the arbiters of his destiny; and, this being performed, he sought his couch. But slumber would not visit his eyes:--myriads of conflicting ideas were in his brain. He felt that he had to play the hypocrite--to keep a bridle on his tongue--to control every look, and measure every word, until the time should come for proclaiming all he knew. For the present he would not distress his parents by allowing them even to suspect that the things which they considered to be such profound secrets, were no longer so to him. No:--he would endeavour to appear the same gay--frank--confiding--affectionate Charles Hatfield that he hitherto had been! These were amongst the principal reflections which chased sleep from his pillow until long past four o’clock;--and when at length his heavy lids were weighed down through sheer exhaustion of the mental and physical energies, his slumber was agitated with wild and varying visions, and he awoke unrefreshed, and still suffering with the fatigue of his long vigil. CHAPTER CXXVII. THE WANDERERS. The night on which Charles Hatfield made the important discoveries detailed in the preceding chapter, was marked by other events of a scarcely less interesting nature. It was about eleven o’clock--the weather was intensely warm--and not a breath of air agitated the foliage on the way-side, as two females toiled slowly and painfully along the high road between Dartford and Shooter’s Hill.