Yet what was he to do?
Was the iniquity of this ambitious and bad man to deprive the virtuous and benevolent woman--the friend of the poor and destitute, the loving mother, the affectionate wife who had enshrined her departed husband in the sorrowful recesses of her pure and virtuous heart, was this coldblooded and cruel tyrant to work out his diabolical purposes without any effort being made to check him in his career of guilt, or to justify her pious trust in that God to whom she looked for protection and justice?
No, he knew Lucy too well; he knew that her extraordinary sense of truth and honor would justify him in the steps he might be forced to take, and that whatever might be the result, he at least was the last man whom she could blame for rendering justice to the widow of her father's brother.

But, then again, what reliance could be placed upon anonymous information--information which, after all, was but limited and obscure?
Yet it was evident that the writer--a female beyond question--whoever she was, must be perfectly conversant with his motives and his objects.

And if in volunteering him directions how to proceed, she had any purpose adversative to his, her note was without meaning.
Besides, she only reawakened the suspicion which he himself had entertained with respect to Fenton.

At all events, to act upon the hints contained in the note, might lead to something capable of breaking the hitherto impenetrable cloud under which this melancholy transaction lay; and if it failed to do this, he (the stranger) could not possibly stand worse in the estimation of Sir Thomas Gourlay than he did already.

In God's name, then, he would make the experiment; and in order to avoid mail-coach adventures in future, he would post it back to Ballytrain as quietly, and with as little observation as possible.
He accordingly ordered Dandy to make such slight preparations as were necessary for their return to that town, and in the meantime he determined to pay another visit to old Dunphy of Constitution Hill.
On arriving at the huckster's, he found him in the backroom, or parlor, to which we have before alluded.