brandy. The day had scarcely broken before Cutts was off, with his bag
of implements and tracts. He would have fain carried off also both the
horses; but the ostler, surly at being knocked up at so early an hour,
might not have surrendered the one ridden by Jasper, without Jasper's own
order to do so. Cutts, however, bade the ostler be sure and tell the
gentleman, before going away, that he, Cutts, strongly advised him "to
have nothing to do with the bullocks."

Cutts, on ariving in London, went straight to Mrs. Crane's old lodging
opposite to Jasper's. But she had now removed to Podden Place, and left
no address. On reaching his own home, Cutts, however, found a note from
her, stating that she should be at her old lodging that evening, if he
would call at half-past nine o'clock; for, indeed, she had been expecting
Jasper's promised visit--had learned that he had left his lodgings, and
was naturally anxious to learn from Cutts what had become of him. When
Cutts called at the appointed hour and told his story, Arabella Crane
immediately recognised all the danger which her informant had so
prudently shunned. Nor was she comforted by Cutts's assurance that
Jasper, on finding himself deserted, would have no option but to abandon,
or at least postpone, an enterprise that, undertaken singly, would be too
rash even for his reckless temerity. As it had become the object of her
life to save Losely from justice, so she now shrunk from denouncing to
justice his meditated crime; and the idea of recurring to Colonel Morley
happily flashed upon her.

Having thus explained to the reader these antecedents in the narrative,
we return to Jasper. He did not rise till late at noon; and as he was
generally somewhat stupefied on rising by the drink he had taken the
night before, and by the congested brain which the heaviness of such
sleep produced, he could not at first believe that Cutts had altogether