Mark threw him a crown, and pressed on once more; but somehow the convictions which resisted, before, were now shaken by this chance meeting. The recognition of the horse at once identified Talbot with Barrington, and although Mark rejected altogether any thought which impugned the honour of his friend, he felt obliged to believe that, for some object of intrigue, Talbot had assumed the name and character of this celebrated personage. The very fact of his rescuing the bill-sticker strengthened this impression. Such an act seemed to Mark far more in unison with the wayward recklessness of Talbot's character, than with the bearing of a man who might thus expose himself to capture. With the subtlety which the will supplies to furnish arguments for its own conviction, Mark fancied how readily Talbot might have made this personation of Barrington a master-stroke of policy, and while thus he ruminated, he reached the sea shore, and could see before him that long bleak track of sand, which, uncovered save at high tide, is called “the Bull.” This was the spot appointed for the meeting, and, although now within half an hour of the time, no figure was seen upon its bleak surface. Mark rode on, and crossing the narrow channel of water which separates “the Bull” from the main-land, reached the place over which, for above two miles in extent, his eye could range freely. Still no one was to be seen; the light ripple of the ebbing tide was the only sound in the stillness of the morning; there was a calmness over the surface of the sea, on which the morning sunbeams were slanting faintly, and glittering like freckled gold, wherever some passing breeze or shore-current stirred the waters. One solitary vessel could be seen, and she, a small schooner, with all her canvas bent, seemed scarcely to move.