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my innocence must so quickly ensure my discharge. I am ready to attend you."

"We will borrow this carriage to convey you to the place of rendezvous,” said the man: and he accordingly motioned to Jocelyn to enter it; which he did, followed by three of the party, when the fourth mounted the box, and they drove off at a brisk rate with their prisoner. Upon the first appearance of the strangers, and the discovery of their purpose, Julia, uttering a shriek of dismay, clung to her lover as if to prevent his departure; and though Constantia and Mrs. Walton, who possessed more presence of mind, and had besides a perfect confidence that the seizure originated in error, used every effort to inspire her with their own fortitude, she remained plunged in the deepest grief and consternation. Never was there a more sudden reverse of feeling, indeed, than was experienced by the whole party, which but a few minutes before was exchanging happy congratulations; for though Constantia and Mrs. Walton had a

full conviction of Jocelyn's innocence, they were by no means equally satisfied that his freedom from guilt would ensure his immediate restoration to liberty. There had been of late so much plotting and caballing in public affairs; so many treasonable designs, real or pretended; and the measures of Government had become so capricious and arbitrary; that hardly any individual was safe, if prejudice and suspicion had once attached to him, although upon no better grounds than the evidence of spies and suborners. So far, however, from communicating these sinister misgivings to Julia, they affected to entertain a full persuasion of his immediate discharge, and succeeded at length in pacifying the first vehemence of her agitation.

Jocelyn, in the meantime, whose impetuous temperament was ill-adapted to brook disappointment of any sort, and particularly a separation from Julia at a moment so interesting to his heart, pursued his journey in a most indignant and splenetic mood, tormented with the

belief that his rival, of whose death he was ignorant, would renew his odious and insolent solicitations in his absence; and worrying himself with vain conjectures as to the cause of his apprehension, and the consequences it was likely to produce. His conductors professed an entire ignorance of the former, though they seemed to infer, from the nature of the orders they had received, that the charge against him was considered to be well substantiated;-and as to the latter, they really could not undertake to pronounce an opinion, though they kindly reminded him that an accusation of high treason was no very light or trifling affair. In this state of suspense, of all others the most irritating and insupportable to our hero, he was doomed to remain until their arrival at the Tower, when he was conveyed across the drawbridge, and passed beneath the low, dark, and frowning arch that leads into the penetralia of that gloomy fortress; not without painfully reverting to the fate of many, who, in traversing its ponderous portal,

had bidden adieu to the world, and had only repassed it to be conducted to the scaffold. It appeared as if perpetual disappointment was to be his fate through life; as if the cup of promised joy was raised to his lips only to be rudely dashed to the earth; and to add to his vexations he already began to anticipate the probability of losing his appointment under the Queen, to which he had looked forward as the principal means of support for himself and Julia.

He welcomed the intelligence as a relief from uncertainty, when Sir John Robinson the Lieutenant of the Tower, on accompanying him to his apartment, informed him that he was charged, on the oath of Mark Walton, as an accomplice with Colonel Rathborn and others, in a plot for procuring the King's death, and the overthrow of the Government. That he should be implicated with that conspirator, after having dined with him and his associates at Battersea, did not much surprise him; nor did he apprehend there would be much difficulty in excul

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pating himself from any participation in their nefarious project; but that Mark Walton should be the informant against him was a circumstance for which he was utterly at a loss to account. That despicable personage, ever prowling about the purlieus of Whitehall to pry into whatever might be turned to account, had observed Colonel Rathborn's daily visits to Jocelyn when the latter was confined from the effects of the fire, and knowing him to be a discontented and suspicious character, determined to watch their proceedings with the utmost narrowness. With this view he had followed and traced them to the house at Battersea, and, lurking about it in order to watch his departure, had been encountered by Jocelyn and Winky Boss, muffled up in a great coat, but had escaped recognition by striking suddenly into the fields. What he had observed upon this occasion Walton kept to himself; and it was not until some time after, when he wanted to get rid of his rival, that he thought of implicating him with Colonel Rath

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