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Amidst the darkening shadows of twilight, Randal Leslie walked through Lansmere Park towards the house. He had slunk away before the poll was closed, -- crept through bylanes, and plunged into the leafless copses of the earl's stately pasture-grounds. Amidst the bewilderment of his thoughts -- at a loss to conjecture how this strange mischance had befallen him, inclined to ascribe it to Leonard's influence over Avenel, but suspecting Harley, and half doubtful of Baron Levy -- he sought to ascertain what fault of judgment he himself had committed, what wile he had forgotten, what thread in his web he had left ragged and incomplete. He could discover none. His ability seemed to him unimpeachable, -- /totus, teres, atque rotundas/. And then there came across his breast a sharp pang, -- sharper than that of baffled ambition, -- the feeling that he had been deceived and bubbled and betrayed.
For so vital a necessity to all living men is TRUTH, that the vilest traitor feels amazed and wronged, feels the pillars of the world shaken, when treason recoils on himself. "That Richard Avenel, whom I trusted, could so deceive me! " murmured Randal, and his lip quivered.