Such indeed was the traveller's purpose, which might have been carried into effect, but for his own self-important love of manoeuvring on the one part, and the fiery impatience of Mowbray on the other, which, as the reader knows, sent the one at full gallop to Shaws-Castle, and obliged the other to follow him post haste.

This necessity he intimated to the clergyman by a note, which he dispatched express as he himself was in the act of stepping into the chaise.
He requested that the most particular attention should be paid to the invalid--promised to be at the Manse with Mr.Mowbray early on the morrow--and, with the lingering and inveterate self-conceit which always induced him to conduct every thing with his own hand, directed his friend, Mr.Cargill, not to proceed to take the sick woman's declaration or confession until he arrived, unless in case of extremity.
It had been an easy matter for Solmes to transfer the invalid from the wretched cottage to the clergyman's Manse.

The first appearance of the associate of much of her guilt had indeed terrified her; but he scrupled not to assure her, that his penitence was equal to her own, and that he was conveying her where their joint deposition would be formally received, in order that they might, so far as possible, atone for the evil of which they had been jointly guilty.

He also promised her kind usage for herself, and support for her children; and she willingly accompanied him to the clergyman's residence, he himself resolving to abide in concealment the issue of the mystery, without again facing his master, whose star, as he well discerned, was about to shoot speedily from its exalted sphere.
The clergyman visited the unfortunate patient, as he had done frequently during her residence in his vicinity, and desired that she might be carefully attended.

During the whole day, she seemed better; but, whether the means of supporting her exhausted frame had been too liberally administered, or whether the thoughts which gnawed her conscience had returned with double severity when she was released from the pressure of immediate want, it is certain that, about midnight, the fever began to gain ground, and the person placed in attendance on her came to inform the clergyman, then deeply engaged with the siege of Ptolemais, that she doubted if the woman would live till morning, and that she had something lay heavy at her heart, which she wished, as the emissary expressed it, "to make, a clean breast of" before she died, or lost possession of her senses.
Awakened by such a crisis, Mr.Cargill at once became a man of this world, clear in his apprehension, and cool in his resolution, as he always was when the path of duty lay before him.