"I fear me, my lord," said Langford, "that those endowed with strong feelings and strong passions are most frequently like children with a box of jewels, squandering precious things without knowing their value, and gaining in exchange but gauds and baubles, the paint and tinsel of which is soon brushed off, leaving us nothing but regret. There is no time of life, however, I believe, at which we may not recover some of the jewels which we have cast away, if we but seek for them rightly; and I know no means likely to be more successful than that which you take in tracing back your steps through the past." "It is a painful contemplation," said Lord Danemore, "and I fear that in the dim twilight of age, let me trace back my steps as closely as I will, I am not likely to find again many of the jewels that I scattered from me in the full daylight of youth." "Perhaps, my lord," replied Langford, "you might, if you were to take a light. However," he added, seeing a look of impatience coming upon the Earl, "I am much obliged to you for your offer of a partial kind of freedom. I never loved to have a door locked between me and the rest of the world; and I willingly promise you to make no attempt to escape during the whole of this day, for of course my promise must have a limit. In the course of that day, you will most likely be able to procure further information in regard to this sad affair; and I do trust and hope that it may be such as may relieve your bosom from the apprehensions which now oppress you." "I must exact your promise for two days," said the Earl; "for I have sent to tell those two foolish men who brought you here, that I cannot deal with them to-day, and have bidden them, in consequence of what you have said, though with but little hope, to cause search of every kind to be made through the country round. There are one or two questions, also, which I would fain ask you, but I will not do it now; yet I know not why I should not; but no, not now! Have I your promise?" "You have," replied Langford. And the Earl, after pausing and hesitating a moment or two longer, quitted him by the chief entrance, leaving the doors open behind him. "There is but one thing I ask of you," added the Earl, as he turned to depart; "should you leave these two rooms, lock the door of the one in which you now are till you return, for I do not suffer the feet of ordinary servants to profane it."