"Lord Dunstable," said Markham, in an impressive tone, "your conduct has been bad—very bad; but much of its blackness is already wiped away by this manifestation of regret and contrition. Do not allow that spark of good feeling to be extinguished—or destruction must await you. And above all, I conjure you to avoid the companionship of such men as those who have even now by their manner scoffed at your expressions of repentance."
"Farewell, my lord," returned the young nobleman, tears trickling down his cheeks: "the events of this evening will never be forgotten by me. Egerton, take this pocket-book: it contains the greater portion of the last sum of money that I borrowed of you; and I shall never know peace of mind, until I have restored all of which I have been instrumental in plundering you."
With these words, Dunstable bowed profoundly to the Prince, and hurried from the room, without casting a single glance upon his late confederates in iniquity.
"My lord, isn't Newgate to become more familiarly acquainted with them scrape-graces Aldborough and Winchester?" asked the old butler, as soon as Dunstable had disappeared from the room.
"Were it not that I had promised this honest and grateful man," said the Prince, turning towards the engraver, "that no criminal proceedings should be instituted on the document that he obtained from you, Sir Rupert Harborough, and from you also, Mr. Chichester, I should consider myself bound, in justice to myself and as a duty owing to society, to expose in a public tribunal the black artifices by which you once inveigled me into your toils. But for his sake—for the sake alike of his personal security and of the good character which he now enjoys—I must leave your punishment to your own consciences. And, though scoffing smiles may now mark the little weight which my prediction carries with it in respect to you, yet rest assured that the time will come when your misdeeds shall be visited with those penalties which it may seem wise to a just heaven to inflict."
Having uttered these words, the Prince turned away, with undisguised aversion, from the two villains whom he had so impressively and solemnly addressed.
They slunk out of the apartment, with chap-fallen countenances, while Whittingham followed them to the door of the dining-room, through which they passed, and conveyed to them the satisfactory intelligence that "if it had impended on him, they should have been confided with strong letters of commendation to the governor of Newgate."
As soon as they had departed, Colonel Cholmondeley inquired in an insolent tone whether the Prince had any thing to say to him; but finding that Markham turned his back contemptuously upon him, he swaggered out of the room, muttering something about "satisfaction in another manner."
Early the next morning, Mrs. Bustard received the following letter:—
"King Square, Goswell Road.