When young Lord Stanton left his own house with Wild Bampfylde there was a tingle of excitement in the young man’s veins. Very few youths of his age are to be found so entirely home-bred as Geoff. He had never been in the way of mischief, and he had no natural tendency to lead him thitherward, so that he had passed these first twenty years of his existence without an adventure, without anything occurring to him that might not have been known to all the world. To leave your own house when other people are thinking of going to bed, for an expedition you know not where, under the guidance of you know not whom, is a sufficiently striking beginning to the path of mystery and adventure; and there was a touch of personal peril in it which gave Geoff a little tingle in his veins. His brother had been killed by some one with whom this wild fellow was closely connected; it was a secret of blood which the young man had set himself to solve one way or other; and this no doubt affected his imagination, and for a short time the consciousness of danger was strong in him, quickening his pulses and making his heart beat. This was increased by a sense of wrong-doing, in so far as Geoff felt that he might be exposing the tranquil household he had left behind to agonies of apprehension about him, did he not return sufficiently early to escape being found out. Finally, on the top of this consciousness of conditional fault came a feeling, perhaps the most strong of all, of the possible absurdity of his position. Romantic adventure, if it never ceases to be attractive to the young, is looked upon with different eyes at different periods, and the nineteenth century has agreed to make a joke of melodrama. Instead of being moved by a fine romantic situation, the modern youth laughs; and the idea of finding himself in such picturesque and dramatic circumstances strikes him as the most curious and laughable, if not ridiculous, idea. To recognize himself as setting out, like the hero of a novel or a play (of the old school), to search out a mystery--into the haunts of a law-defying and probably law-breaking class, under the guidance of a theatrical vagrant, tramp, or gipsy, to ask counsel of the weird old woman, bright-eyed and solemn, who held all the threads of the story in her hands, filled Geoff with mingled confusion and amusement. He had almost laughed to himself as he realized it; but with the laugh a flush came over his face--what would other people think? He felt that he would be laughed at as romantic, jibed at as being able to believe that any real or authentic information could be obtained in this ridiculous way. ’Lizabeth Bampfylde in the witness-box would no doubt be valuable, but the romances she might tell in her own house, to a young man evidently so credulous and of such a theatrical temperament--these two things were entirely different, and he would be thoroughly laughed at for his foolishness.