"Oh, Sir," rejoined Louis, "I have only to represent to my guardian the candour with which the Duke of Wharton has just treated his unhappy prejudice; and I am sure he will instantly permit me to return to the castle." "Then you persist in going to-night?" "Now, Sir," replied Louis, "the tide serves: and if I delay, I must remain till midnight." Sir Anthony walked the room in great agitation. Wharton looked at his young friend with a persuasion in his eyes, to which he did not give words; and their beset object, unable to give a favourable answer to such pleading, bent his to the ground. At last the baronet stopped opposite to him. "Louis, you are not a generous adversary. You deal hardly with the heart you so well know is all your own. And there you stand, so silent, so stern, to compel your uncle--the man whose life you saved,--to beg your pardon for his violence; and to entreat you, even with prayers, not to leave his roof in anger!" Sir Anthony caught his nephew's hand, and sobbed out the last words. Louis threw himself on his uncle's neck; and quite overcome, hardly articulated, "I will stay to-night, but to-morrow morning--Oh, my dear Sir, do not urge me to forfeit my own esteem!" Wharton took the arm of the baronet, who covered his face with his handkerchief, while he obeyed the impulse which drew him away through the gallery-door. The Duke bent back, and whispered to Louis, "You will follow us to the dining-room?" He bowed his head in troubled silence; and the baronet and his friend turned down the gallery. "A few hours yielded to my uncle's feelings," said Louis to himself, "will, I trust, make no essential difference in the performance of my word to Mr. Athelstone. And indeed I am true to its spirit, for I stay not willingly. And yet, were it not for my pledged word, what delight should I have in the society of this amiable, this ingenuous, this generous Wharton!" When Louis joined the party at dinner, the flush of his hardly-subsided agitation was still on his cheek; but his manner was composed, and his looks cheerful. The company were all seated; and the place left for him was between the lively Frenchwoman and the Earl of Warwick. The ruddy face of the baronet was burnished with smiles from his recent victory, which he hoped was a final one over the future influence of the Pastor with his nephew: and the pride of triumph did not a little inspirit the vivacity with which he did the honours of his table; challenging Louis to pledge the ladies in sparkling Champagne, while he drank to their ruby lips in glowing Burgundy.