“I grant,” answered Heriot, “the distinction between the old goldsmith and the young nobleman—still you should have had patience for Lord Huntinglen's sake, and prudence for your own. Supposing your quarrel just—”
“I pray you to pass on to some other charge,” said Lord Glenvarloch.
“I am not your accuser, my lord; but I trust in heaven, that your own heart has already accused you bitterly on the inhospitable wrong which your late landlord has sustained at your hand.”
“Had I been guilty of what you allude to,” said Lord Glenvarloch,—“had a moment of temptation hurried me away, I had long ere now most bitterly repented it. But whoever may have wronged the unhappy woman, it was not I—I never heard of her folly until within this hour.”
“Come, my lord,” said Heriot, with some severity, “this sounds too much like affectation. I know there is among our modern youth a new creed respecting adultery as well as homicide—I would rather hear you speak of a revision of the Decalogue, with mitigated penalties in favour of the privileged orders—I would rather hear you do this than deny a fact in which you have been known to glory.”
“Glory!—I never did, never would have taken honour to myself from such a cause,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I could not prevent other idle tongues, and idle brains, from making false inferences.”
“You would have known well enough how to stop their mouths, my lord,” replied Heriot, “had they spoke of you what was unpleasing to your ears, and what the truth did not warrant.—Come, my lord, remember your promise to confess; and, indeed, to confess is, in this case, in some slight sort to redress. I will grant you are young—the woman handsome—and, as I myself have observed, light-headed enough. Let me know where she is. Her foolish husband has still some compassion for her—will save her from infamy—perhaps, in time, receive her back; for we are a good-natured generation we traders. Do not, my lord, emulate those who work mischief merely for the pleasure of doing so—it is the very devil's worst quality.”
“Your grave remonstrances will drive me mad,” said Nigel. “There is a show of sense and reason in what you say; and yet, it is positively insisting on my telling the retreat of a fugitive of whom I know nothing earthly.”
“It is well, my lord,” answered Heriot, coldly. “You have a right, such as it is, to keep your own secrets; but, since my discourse on these points seems so totally unavailing, we had better proceed to business. Yet your father's image rises before me, and seems to plead that I should go on.”
“Be it as you will, sir,” said Glenvarloch; “he who doubts my word shall have no additional security for it.”