While this was going forward, and we were congratulating ourselves in secret on the most fortunate course this portentous affair was like to take, an incident happened that shook me dreadfully, and recalled to my mind much more sharply than I cared, the kind of fortune I was about to endow my bride with. For the time being I had forgotten the colour of my reputation, the character of my past, and my black prospects for the future, in the cheerful topsy-turvy madness of the last twelve hours. But now all of a sudden, in the least expected fashion, I was reminded as to who I was, and what I was. The parson, who all the time had been deeply involved in his news-sheet, suddenly cast it down, uttered a loud exclamation, and with tears in his honest eyes began striding down in his agitation, and knocked down many an unoffending book. "_O tempera! O mores!_" says he, "In what degenerate days do we live! To think that this should be the grandson of such a grandsire! No; I cannot believe it of him; nay, I will not believe it of him." You may guess that as there was a grandfather in the case I pricked up my ears at once, and on looking at the newspaper saw that which confirmed my premonition. There was a paragraph in the column of "Newest Intelligence" that ran in this wise: "On Tuesday evening in the near neighbourhood of divers well-known coffee-and-chocolate-houses in Saint James's Street, Piccadilly, was found the body of Mr. Richard Burdock, of His Majesty's 4th Regiment of Horse Guards. The unfortunate gentleman had been done to death by a sword-wound in the upper part of the chest. Precisely in what manner the deceased came by his end is not at present known, but we are informed that on the following day an information was laid against the Earl of Tiverton, a nobleman whose name has been most unhappily notorious of late. A warrant was at once procured for the arrest of Lord Tiverton, and on an attempt being made to put it in force at his lordship's residence later in the day, a most desperate struggle ensued, and his lordship with the assistance of his household succeeded in effecting, for the time being, his escape. We learn, however, that the celebrated Mr. John Jeremy of Bow Street has the matter in hand; that Mr. Jeremy with his world-famed acumen is in possession of a clue as to Lord Tiverton's whereabouts; that Mr. Jeremy is already actively following up the same, and that presently an event may transpire that shall set all the town by the ears."