300 THE SMUGGLER. 



fice on his part, yet seeing no distinct means of acting in any 

 direction without danger to her, he looked around him in vain 

 for any resource, or, if he formed a plan one moment, he re- 

 jected it the next. He knew Edith's perfect truth, he knew 

 the quiet firmness and power of her mind too well to doubt 

 one tittle of that which she had stated ; and though at first 

 sight he thought the proofs he possessed of Mr. Radford's par- 

 ticipation in the late smuggling transaction were quite sufficient 

 to justify that person's immediate arrest, and proposed that it 

 should take place immediately, yet the next moment he recol- 

 lected what might be the result to Sir Robert Croyland, and 

 hesitated how to act. Then, again, he turned his eyes to 

 the circumstances in which Edith's father was placed, and 

 asked himself, what could be the mystery which so terribly 

 overshadowed him ? Edith had said that his life was at stake ; 

 and Layton tortured his imagination in vain to find some ex- 

 planation of such a fact. 



" Can he have been deceiving her?" he asked himself more 

 than once. But then, again, he answered, "No; it must be 

 true! He can have no ordinary motive in urging her to such 

 a step; his whole character, his whole views are against it. 

 Haughty and ostentatious, there must be some overpowering 

 cause to make him seek to wed his daughter to a low ruffian, 

 the son of an upstart, who owed his former wealth to fraud, 

 and who is now, if ail tales be true, nearly bankrupt; to wed 

 Edith, a being of grace, of beauty, and of excellence, to a 

 villain like this, a felon and a fugitive, and to send her forth 

 into the wide world, to share the wanderings of a man she 

 hates! The love of life must be a strange thing in some men. 

 One would have thought that a thousand lives were nothing to 

 such a sacrifice. Yet the tale must be true ; this old man must 

 have Sir Robert's life in his power. But how: how? that is 

 the question. Perhaps Digby can discover something. At all 

 events, I must see him without delay/' 



In such thoughts, Sir Henry Layton rode on fast to Wood- 

 church, accomplishing in twenty minutes that which took good 

 Mr. Croyland, with his pampered horses, more than an hour to 

 perform; and springing from his charger at the door of the 

 inn, he was preparing to go up and write to Sir Edward 

 Digby, when Captain Irby, on the one hand, and his own ser- 

 vant on the other, applied for attention. 



