"Ah Wilton, my boy," cried the Colonel, as he rode up, "I am glad to see you.—You are not behind your time, but there is an impatience upon me now that made me set off early. I am glad I did, for I have not been on my horse's back for a fortnight; and there is something in poor Barbary's motion that gives me back a part of my former lightness of heart."
"I wish to Heaven that you could get it all back," replied Wilton. "But I fear when it is lost it is not to be regained—I feel that it is so, but too bitterly, at this moment."
"What you!" exclaimed the Colonel. "What is the matter, Wilton? What have you done? for a man never loses his lightness of heart for ever, but by his own act?"
"I think," said Wilton, "from what I have heard you say, that you can feel for my situation, when I tell you, that, by the entanglements of one I do not scruple to call a most accursed villain, I can neither go on with honour in the course that is before me, nor retreat without dishonour; and even if I could do either, there would still be absolute and perpetual misery for me in life."
"Who is the villain?" demanded Green, abruptly.
"The Earl of Byerdale," replied Wilton.
"Ha, ha, ha!" shouted Green aloud. "He is a cursed villain; he always was, and ever will be. But we will frustrate the Earl of Byerdale, Wilton. I tell you, that, with my right hand on his collar, the Earl of Byerdale is no more than a lackey."
"But you cannot frustrate him," replied Wilton, "so as to relieve me, unless you can find means to set the Duke of Gaveston at liberty; and even then—but it matters not. I can bear unhappiness, but not dishonour."
"Set the Duke at liberty!" said Green, thoughtfully. "He ought to have been at liberty already. He has committed no crime, but only folly. He has been stupid, not wicked; and besides, I had heard—but that may be a mistake. Let us ride on, Wilton," he continued, turning his horse; "and as we go, tell me all that has happened."
"Alas!" replied Wilton, riding on beside him, "that is of all things what I cannot and must not do. If I could speak, if I could open my mouth to any one on the subject, one half of my difficulties, one half of my grief; would be relieved at once. But that I am pledged and bound not to do, in a manner which leaves me no relief, which affords me no means of escape."