"Well, well, well!" cried the boy, "tell me what it is I am to do."
"Will you undertake it?" demanded the peer, eagerly.
"If," answered the gipsy--for probably there was never yet a crime committed, in regard to which the criminal did not propose some palliating motive, in order to deceive his own heart at the time, and to calm the anticipated reproaches of his conscience thereafter--"if you will promise, by God and the heavens, that, if Pharold is innocent, you will let him go free."
Lord Dewry paused for an instant. It is strange, but no less true than strange, that the mind not only habituates itself to evil, but habituates itself to a particular course of evil, and the same person who will boldly reiterate a crime to which he is accustomed, will start at a much less heinous offence, if it be new to his habits. Thus, Lord Dewry paused for an instant ere he swore to a promise which he intended to evade; but he soon remembered that, in the course which he was pursuing, there was no halting at so airy a thing as an oath; and he replied, "By all that is sacred, he shall go free, if he proves himself innocent."
"Well, then," said the youth, "I will do what you wish; but, oh, if you deceive me!"
"Deceive you in what?" demanded the peer. "I have promised that, if he prove himself innocent, he shall of course go free: it is but just."
"But it was not of that I spoke," said the gipsy: "I thought if you were to deceive me into trapping Pharold, and then not to let me go myself!"
"On my honour! on my soul!" cried the peer, with a ready vehemence, which convinced the youth more easily than would have been possible, if he had known how often men pledge their honour and their soul when the real jewels are no longer theirs--when their true honour has been lost for years, and their soul pawned deeply to an eternal foe.
"Well, well," he answered, "I will do it. Tell me how it is to be done."
"Tell me first," said the peer: "this Pharold--he is jealous of you, it seems?" The boy smiled faintly. "Will he, then, take sufficient interest in your fate to attempt to rescue you, if he thinks there is a probability of success?"