But in another instant he was stunned by the blow of a pistol on the head.
When he awoke, he was in total darkness, and lying on a hard bed.
He instinctively stretched out his arms: his right hand encountered a rough and damp stone wall.
He rose and groped cautiously about him;—but it required not many moments to convince him of the terrible though mysterious truth—that he was the inmate of a narrow dungeon!
But where was he thus imprisoned?
Who were the authors of this outrage?
And for what purpose was he made a captive?
These three queries defied all conjecture; and the young nobleman was left to the darkness of his dungeon and the gloom of his meditations.
CHAPTER XLIX.
A PAINFUL INTERVIEW.
We must now go back a few hours—only to the morning of this eventful day—in order to describe the interview which Mr. Clarence Villiers had with his respectable aunt Mrs. Slingsby, at her residence in Old Burlington Street.