The previous suspicions of Woodburn, respecting the disappearance of these records through the agency of Peters, were now confirmed in the mind of the former, as certainly as if he had witnessed the act; and this aggravating discovery, coming as it did too late to be of any benefit to him, and at a moment, too, when his feelings, notwithstanding his recent declarations to Miss Haviland, and his subsequent resolves, were sore from the insidious workings of jealousy, and the revolting thought of the pretensions of his hated foe to her hand--this discovery, we say, wrought up his mind, already embittered to the last degree of endurance, to a state little short of absolute frenzy. And clinching the fragments of the book, which contained the proof of the black transaction, in one hand, and flourishing the heavy oak cane he had with him in the other, he rushed out of the enclosure, and, with a disturbed air and hurrying step, took his way towards his desolate home, resolved, that in case he found, as he feared, that all chance of legal redress had passed by, he would, at least, unsparingly make use of the means, now in his power, in trumpeting the villainy of Peters to the world. In this state of exasperation, after proceeding a short distance he unexpectedly and unfortunately encountered the very object of his pent indignation, the haughty and hated Peters, who, on horseback, was coming up a cross-road on his way to the Tory Tavern, where, as the reader has been already apprised, his tools and partisans were anxiously awaiting his arrival. “Ha! here? Then he shall be the first to hear it,” muttered Woodburn, as with a flashing eye he suddenly turned and sternly confronted the other in his path. “What now, sir?” said Peters, reigning up with a look of surprise not unmingled with uneasiness. “I will tell you what, now, sir,” replied Woodburn, in a voice quivering with suppressed passion; “your frauds are exposed! Here are the remains of those very records you or your tools purloined to enable you to accomplish your unhallowed triumph over me, and now just found buried in yonder graveyard!” “Away, sir!” exclaimed Peters, recovering his usual assurance. “I know nothing of your crazy jargon: stand aside and let me pass.” “Not till you have looked at the proof of what I assert, or acknowledged its correctness,” persisted the other, extending his cane before the horse with his right hand, and thrusting forward the open book with his left. “Here it is; here is the record of my deed--dates and all, as I and you, too, sir, well knew them to be. Look at it, sir, and restore me my property, or confess yourself a villain!”