Of what had taken place in the interim Langford was ignorant. From time to time Gray talked of other lands which he had visited, and more burning climates which he had known; but he did so in a vague and obscure manner, which excited curiosity without inviting inquiry. Langford had made none; and though they had met frequently since, and dark suspicions and apprehensions--springing from a comparison of Gray's former poverty and his known prodigality with the wealth he seemed now to have at command--had from time to time crossed his friend's mind in regard to the pursuits to which he had dedicated himself, it was only on the occasion of the present visit to Moorhurst that Langford had obtained a positive certainty of the painful truth. As soon as he had obtained that certainty, he determined to warn, to exhort, to beseech his former friend to quit the dangerous pursuits in which he was engaged; to offer once more to share with him all his little wealth, in gratitude for many an act of kindness gone before, and for a service that Gray was even then anxious to do him, at the risk of life itself; but on no account to participate in any scheme conducted by the other, however great and important the object to be gained for himself. His own wound, and the temporary disappearance of Gray and his companions from that part of the country, had prevented Langford from notifying to him this intention fully, after the night of the attack upon Alice Herbert, though he had done so in general terms twice before, and he had gone to the rendezvous appointed by Gray, on the night of which we have just been speaking, supposing that it was to have preceded, not to have followed, the enterprise proposed. All that he had seen had been terribly painful to him; and in what had occurred upon the moor he had too good reason to believe that an act had been committed which he should not be justified in concealing. Yet, how was he to reveal it, without the basest breach of confidence, and the grossest ingratitude towards a man who had been risking all to serve him? How was he to denounce the crime that had been committed, and bring to justice the perpetrators thereof, without involving Gray in the same destruction? Such were the matters in his thoughts, as he rode rapidly on towards the Manor House; but by the time he had gone about three miles his mind had been naturally led to inquire, who was the unfortunate person that had been attacked; and for the first time an apprehension crossed his mind that it might be Lord Harold. "And yet," thought Langford, as he rode along, "he would never go over the moor at that time of night, and alone. He must have been home long before, too: nevertheless he set out very slowly; and he seemed to turn to the right, as if he were going by the moor. He may have loitered by the way, or visited some cottage, or called at some house. Good God! this uncertainty is not to be borne. I must, and will go back to the moor."