It was about four and twenty hours after the momentous avowal just recorded, that a chaise, and four post horses were seen, dashing furiously up the drive leading to the front entrance of Mrs. Ormond's house in Wiltshire. It was a bright, sunny evening early in May; Ella was reading at an open window in the drawing-room; her mother sat at work not far distant, and Sir George Arundel, who had dined with them, and was the only guest they had had, was walking up and down the apartment, with what has long been voted so unpardonably detestable, creaking shoes; now and then stopping to speak to, or listen to Mrs. / Ormond, and at intervals endeavouring (though with but momentary success,) to engage the attention of her daughter. The sound of the chaise, its rapid advance, and the unusual hour of its coming, awoke in her far more interest than any thing the baronet could suggest, and she waited impatiently till a servant should inform them who the vehicle had brought.

‘I should not be much surprised,’ said Sir George in a low voice to Mrs. Ormond, ‘if this were a messenger bringing intelligence that Ernest de Gray has been committed and taken from Ormond Hall, to the county jail. I have had information given me, that it was his design on leaving London, to pay Lady Ormond a visit, and I think the number of those, who in that neighbourhood, believed in his guilt, was quite sufficient to lead to his being taken into custody.’