"Indeed!" cried his companion, a good deal surprised; "you are a strange being, Mr. Warde. You seem to learn men's secrets, whether they will or not." "There is nothing strange on earth, but man's blindness," answered the other; "everything is so simple, when once explained, that its simplicity remains the only marvel.--But here he comes. Let me converse with him first. Then, when he is aware of all that I know, you shall have my absence, or my presence, as it suits you." While he was speaking, the voice of Henry Leyton was heard below, and then his step upon the stairs; and, before Digby could answer, he was in the room. His face was grave, but not so cloudy as it had been when he returned to Woodchurch, half-an-hour before. He welcomed Mr. Warde frankly, and cordially; but turned immediately to Sir Edward Digby, saying, "You have been quick indeed, Digby. I could not have conceived that my letter had reached you." "I got no letter," answered Digby; "perhaps it missed me on the way; for, the corn being down, I came straight across the country." "It matters not--it matters not," answered Leyton; "so you are here--that is enough. I have much to say to you, and that of immediate importance." "I know it already," answered Digby. "But here is our good friend, Warde, who seems to have something to say to you on the same subject." Sir Henry Leyton turned towards the old man with some surprise. "I think Digby must be mistaken," he said, "for though, I am aware, from what you told me some little time ago, that you have been in this part of the country before, yet it must have been long ago, and you can know nothing of the events which have affected myself since." The old man smiled, and shook his head. "I know more than you imagine," he answered. "It is, indeed, long since first I was in this land; but not so long since I was here last; and all its people and its things, its woods, its villages, its hills, are as familiar to me--ay, more so than to you. Of yourself, Leyton, and your fate, I also know much--I might say I know all; for certainly I know more than you do, can do more than you are able to do, will do more than you can. To show you what I know; I will give you a brief summary of your own history--at least, that part of it, of which you think I know nothing. Young, eager, and impatient, you were thrown constantly into the society of one, good, beautiful, gentle, and true. You had much encouragement from those who should not have given it, unless they had the intention of continuing it to the end. You loved, and were beloved; and then, in the impatience of your boyish ardour, you bound Edith Croyland to yourself, without her parent's knowledge and consent, by vows which, whatever human laws may say, are indissoluble by the law of Heaven; and therein you did wrong. It was a great error.--Do I say right?" "It was, indeed," answered Sir Henry Leyton, casting down his eyes sternly on the ground--"it was, indeed."