“Think not, my dear son,” answered Mr. Hatfield, “that I shall claim of you a deference incompatible with your age and social position—or that I shall attempt to exercise an authority that may seem to have borrowed any taint of severity from the experience of the past. No: but I shall counsel and advise you as a friend—and in your best interest shall I ever speak. On our arrival in London, we will not return immediately to Pall Mall; but we will repair to an hotel, whence I will send privately for the Earl; and his advice will assist me in respect to the course to be observed towards his amiable daughter. And now, Charles, do you feel yourself capable of commencing at once our journey homeward?—or are you too much exhausted——”
“No—no: let us depart from Paris without delay!” exclaimed the young man. “I have no longer any object in remaining here.”
Mr. Hatfield rang the bell; and a waiter made his appearance.
“A chaise-and-four as speedily as possible,” was the laconic command given; “and you must have our passports backed for Boulogne or Calais.”
The domestic bowed and withdrew.
Two hours afterwards the father and son were seated together in the chaise, which was rolling rapidly along the road to Saint Denis.
“I will now give you some account of the adventures which I experienced in pursuit of you,” said Mr. Hatfield, who felt that the silence previously existing between himself and Charles was growing painful: for they had not uttered a word from the moment they entered the vehicle until Mr. Hatfield now spoke—an interval of nearly half-an-hour.
“I shall be pleased to hear them,” observed the young man, anxious to divert his thoughts from the painful topics that were naturally occupying them: “for I must confess that I am at a loss to conjecture how you happened to fall in with the officers at Dover, and how you were enabled to trace me to the hotel where you this morning found me.”
“The explanation of all this is readily given,” said Mr. Hatfield; and as the chaise was rolling along the unpaved part of the road, there was no effort necessary to make his voice audible. “I shall commence with the incidents of the morning on which you quitted London in company with the two females whose pernicious influence has worked so much mischief. You remember that a most painful interview took place between yourself and me in the library, and that you burst away—perhaps just at the moment when explanations might have arisen to convince you of the futility of your ambitious hopes and golden visions in respect to birth and title. Shortly after you thus left me, the Earl entered the room; and a conversation which took place, led to the mention of the secret papers. He sought for them in the recess to which he had consigned them—and they were gone. At the same moment I obtained the conviction that the Annual Register for a certain year, and containing a certain dreadful narrative, had been lately read. Then a light broke in upon the Earl and myself; and we penetrated the motives of the strange conduct you had recently observed towards your parents. At this juncture, Mr. Clarence Villiers made his appearance; and, on consulting him, we learnt to our dismay that the women who passed under the name Fitzhardinge were his aunt and cousin,—Mrs. Slingsby, who was transported years ago for forgery—and Perdita, her illegitimate child, born in Newgate, a few weeks previous to her departure. You may conceive the anguish which we endured when we found that you had become connected with such women; and Villiers hastened to Suffolk Street to obtain an interview with you.”
“Would to God that he had succeeded in finding me—that my departure with those wretches had been only delayed a few minutes!” cried Charles, still a prey to the most harrowing feelings.