Musing on the causes and consequences of so unnatural a state of moral existence, he passed hastily through the galleries. The day was unusually warm for the season, and the heat of the stoves made the unventilated air so oppressive, that absorbed in thought, he unconsciously complied with his bodily feeling; and, with his cap still in his hand, he allowed his pelisse to fall open from his figure, as he hastened down the passages. As he turned into an obscure lobby, by which he avoided the public guard-room, he passed the bottom of a flight of steps. Two persons were coming out of a door at the top. He did not observe the circumstance, so profound was his reverie, till he heard the voice of Wharton exclaiming, "'tis he, by Heaven!" Without a moment's hesitation, Louis sprang forward; but not to meet his friend. He disappeared from the passage, at the very instant he heard the Duke throw himself over the rails of the stair, and call in louder accents, "De Montemar! De Montemar! Stop, for God's sake! It is Wharton who calls you!" But Louis continued to fly, and Wharton to pursue, till the former abruptly turning through a small postern into the street, darted into his carriage; which always awaited him at this obscure entrance. It was just wheeling into the mob of attending equipages, when he beheld the Duke issue from the gate, and stand gazing around in search of his faithless friend! "Faithless, I am not, dear, insulted Wharton!" cried Louis, aloud, though unheard by him he apostrophised. "But you have seen me desert you! Fly you, in spite of the sacred adjuration with which you would have recalled me! Oh, what do you now think of ungrateful de Montemar?" At that moment he saw the Duke strike his forehead, as in the vexation of disappointment; and in the next, the turn of the carriage snatched him from his sight. Louis now began to arraign his own carelessness, in having erred so unpardonably against warning, as to permit any abstraction of mind to divert him from the indispensible concealment of his person. Angry with himself, and vexed to the soul that his negligent reverie had so immediately incurred the evil most deprecated by Ignatius, the wormwood in his heart for a moment distilled over every other object, and with a bitterness unusual to him, he exclaimed, "Why did I forget that a man sworn to politics, has immolated body and mind? Neither love nor friendship, nor the reasoning faculty, are for him. She is his deity, and must command all his thoughts! Had I properly recollected this detested creed, coiled like Satan in his serpent-train, I might have passed through the dust, unnoticed by the erect eyes of Duke Wharton!"