Here have I offended, for aught I know, to the death, the lord of this stately castle, whose word were as powerful to take away my life as the breath which speaks it to blow out a farthing candle.

And all this for a mad lady, and a melancholy gallant, who, on the loss of a four-nooked bit of paper, has his hand on his poignado, and swears death and fury!--Then there is the Doctor and Varney .-- I will save myself from the whole mess of them.

Life is dearer than gold.

I will fly this instant, though I leave my reward behind me." These reflections naturally enough occurred to a mind like Wayland's, who found himself engaged far deeper than he had expected in a train of mysterious and unintelligible intrigues, in which the actors seemed hardly to know their own course.

And yet, to do him justice, his personal fears were, in some degree, counterbalanced by his compassion for the deserted state of the lady.
"I care not a groat for Master Tressilian," he said; "I have done more than bargain by him, and I have brought his errant-damosel within his reach, so that he may look after her himself.