University of Virginia Library

The Rival Sisters;
OR,
INGLEBOROUGH HALL.
A
Local Legend of the Great Civil War.
1644.

1. CHAPTER I.

In one of those sweet glens, half-pastoral, half-sylvan, which
may be found in hundreds channelling the steep sides of the
moorland hills, and sending down the tribute of their pure limestone
springs to the broad rivers which fertilize, no less than
they adorn, the lovely vales of western Yorkshire, there may
be seen to this day the ruins of an old dwelling-house, situate
on a spot so picturesque, so wild, and yet so soft in its romantic
features, that they would well repay the traveller for a brief
halt, who but too often hurries onward in search of more remote
yet certainly not greater beauties.

The gorge, within the mouth of which the venerable pile
was seated, opens into the broader valley of Wharfdale from
the northeastern side, enjoying the full light and warmth of the
southern sunshine; and although very narrow at its origin,
where its crystal rivulet springs up from the lonely well-head,
fringed by a few low shrubs of birch and alder, expands here
at its mouth into a pretty amphitheatre or basin of a few acres'
circuit.

A wild and feathery coppice of oak, and birch, and hazel,
with here and there a mountain-ash showing its bright-red berries

through the red foliage, clothes all the lower part of the
surrounding slopes; while, far above, the seamed and shattered
faces of the gray slaty limestone rise up like artificial walls,
their summits crowned with the fair purple heather, and every
nook and cranny in their sides crowded with odorous wild
flowers. Within the circuits of these natural limits, sheltering
it from every wind of heaven except the gentle south, the turf
lies smooth and even, as if it were a cultured lawn; while a
few rare exotic shrubs, now all run out of shape, and bare and
straggling, indicate yet the time when it was a fair shrubbery,
tended by gentle hands, and visited by young and lovely beings,
now cold in their untimely sepulchres.

The streamlet, which comes gushing down the glen with its
clear, copious flow, boiling and murmuring about the large gray
boulders, which everywhere obstruct its channel, making a
thousand mimic cataracts, and wakening ever a wild, mirthful
music, sweeps here quite close to the foot of the eastern cliff,
the feathery branches of the oakwood dipping their foliage in
its eddies; and then, just as it issues forth into the open champaign,
wheels round in a half-circle, completely isolating the
little amphitheatre above mentioned, except at one point, hard
beneath the opposite hill-face, where a small, winding horse-track,
engrossing the whole space between the streamlet and
the limestone rock, gives access to the lone demesne.

A small, green hillock, sloping down gently to the southward,
fills the embracing arms of the bright brook, around the northern
base of which is scattered a little grove of the most magnificent
and noblest sycamores that I have ever seen; but on
the other side, which yet retains its pristine character of a
smooth, open lawn, there are no obstacles to the view over the
wide valley, except three old gnarled thorn-bushes, uncommon
from their size, and the dense luxuriance of their matted
greenery.

It was upon the summit of this little knoll that the old homestead
stood, whose massive ruins of red freestone, all overgrown
with briers and tall, rank grass and dock-leaves, deface the spot
which they adorned of old; and, when it was erect, in all its
fair proportions, the scene which it overlooked and its own
natural attractiveness rendered it one of the loveliest residences
in all the north of England.

The wide, rich, gentle valley, all meadow-land and pasture,
without one brown, ploughed field to mar its velvet green; the
tall, thick hawthorn hedges, with their long lines of hedgerow
timber, oak, ash, and elm, waving above the smooth enclosures;
the broad, clear, tranquil river, flashing out like a silver mirror
through the green foliage; the scattered farmhouses, each nestled
as it were among its sheltering orchards; the village spire
shooting up from the clump of giant elms, which overshadowed
the old graveyard; the steep, long slope on the other side of
the vale, or strath as it would be called in Scotland, all mapped
out to the eye with its green fences and wide, hanging woods;
and far beyond the rounded summits of the huge moorland hills,
ridge above ridge, purple, and grand, and massive, but less and
less distinct as they recede from the eye, and melt away at last
into the far blue distance — such was the picture which its windows
overlooked of old, and which still laughs as gayly as of
yore, in the glad sunshine, around its mouldering walls and
lonely hearthstone.

But if it is fair now, and lovely, what was it, as it showed in
the good old days of King Charles, before the iron hand of civil
war had pressed so heavily upon England? The groves of
sycamores stood there, as they stand now in the prime and
luxuriance of their sylvan manhood; for they are now waxing
aged, and somewhat gray and stag-horned; and the thorn-bushes
sheltered, as they do now, whole choirs of thrushes and
blackbirds; but all the turf, beneath the scattered trees, and

on the sunny slope, was so shorn, and rolled, and watered, that
it was smooth and even, and far softer than the most costly
carpet that ever wooed the step of Persian beauty.

The hall was a square building, not very large, and of the
old Elizabethan style, with two irregular additions — wings as
they might be called — of the same architecture, though of a
later period; and its deep-embayed oriel windows, with their
fantastic millions of carved freestone, its tall, quaint chimneys,
and its low porch with overhanging canopy and clustered columns,
rendered it singularly picturesque and striking.

The little green within the gorge of the upper glen, which is
so wildly beautiful in its present situation, left as it is to the
unaided hand of nature, was then a perfect paradise; for an
exquisite taste had superintended its conversion into a sort of
untrained garden. An eye, well used to note effects, had
marked its natural capabilities, and, adding artificial beauties,
had never trenched upon the character of the spot by anything
incongruous or startling.

Rare plants, rich-flowering shrubs, and scented herbs, were
indeed scattered with a lavish hand about its precincts, but were
so scattered that they seemed the genuine production of the
soil. The Spanish cistus had been taught to carpet the wild
crags, in conjunction with the native thyme and heather; the
arbutus and laurestinus had been brought from afar, to vie with
the mountain-ash and holly; the clematis and the sweet-scented
vine blended their tendrils with the rich English honeysuckle
and the luxuriant ivy; rare lotuses might be seen floating, with
their azure-colored cups and broad green leaves, upon the glassy
basins into which the mountain streamlet had been taught to
expand, among the white wild water-lilies and the bright-yellow
clusters of the marsh-marigolds; roses of every hue and scent,
from the dark-crimson of Damascus to the pale blush of soft
Provence, grew side by side with the wild wood-brier and eglantine;

and many a rustic seat of mossy stone, or roots and
unbarked branches, invited the loitering visiter in every shadowy
angle.

There was no spot, in all the north of England, whereon the
winter frowned so lightly as on those sheltered precincts —
there was no spot whereon spring smiled so early, and with
so bright an aspect — wherein the summer so long lingered,
pouring her gorgeous flowers, rich with her spicy breath, into
the very lap of autumn. It was indeed a sweet spot, and as
happy as it was sweet and beautiful — before the curse of civil
war was poured upon the groaning land, with its dread train of
foul and fiendish ministers: and yet it was not war, nor any of
its direct consequences, that turned that happy home into a ruin
and desolation.

It was not war — unless the struggles of the human heart —
the conflict of the fierce and turbulent passions — the strife of
principles, of motives, of desires, within the secret soul, may
be called war — as indeed they might, and that with no figurative
tongue; for they are the hottest, the most devastating, the
most fatal, of all that bear that ominous and cruel appellation.

Such was the aspect then of Ingleborough hall, at the period
when it was perhaps the most beautiful, and when, as is but
too often the case, its beauties were on the very point of being
brought to a close for ever. The family which owned the manor
— for the possessions attached to the old homestead were
large, and the authority arising from them extended over a great
part of Upper Wharfdale — was one of those old English races
which, though not noble in the literal sense of the word, are
yet so ancient, and so indissolubly connected with the soil, that
they may justly be comprised among the aristocracy of the land.
The name was Saxon; and it was generally believed, and probably
with truth, that the date of the name and of its connection
with that estate was at the least coeval with the Conquest. To

what circumstances it was owing that the Hawkwoods — for
such was the time-honored appellation of the race — had retained
possession of their fair demesne, when all the land was
allotted out to feudal barons and fat priests, can never now be
ascertained, nor does it indeed signify; yet that it was to some
honorable cause, some service rendered, or some high exploit,
may be fairly presumed from the fact that the mitred potentate
of Bolton abbey, who levied his tithes far and near, throughout
those fertile valleys, had no claim on the fruits of Ingleborough.
During the ages that had passed since the advent of the Norman
William, the Hawkwoods had never lacked male representatives
to sustain the dignity of their race; and gallantly
had they sustained it: for in full many a lay and legend, ay!
and in grave, cold history itself, the name of Hawkwood might
be found side by side with the more sonorous appellations of
the Norman feudatories — the Ardens, and Mauleverers, and
Vavasours — which fill the chronicles of border warfare.

At the period of which I write, however, the family had no
male scion. The last heir-male, Ralph Hawkwood, had died
some years before, full of years and of domestic honors — a
zealous sportsman, a loyal subject, a kind landlord, a good
friend. His lot had fallen in quiet times and pleasant places;
and he lived happily, and died in the arms of his family, at
peace with all men. His wife, a calm, placid dame, who had
in her young days been the beauty of the shire, survived him;
and spent her whole time, as she devoted her whole mind and
spirit, in educating the two daughters, joint heiresses of the old
manor-house, who were left by their father's death — two bright-eyed,
fair-haired prattlers — dependent for protection on the
strong love, but frail support, of their widowhood mother.

2. CHAPTER II.

Years passed away, and with their flight the two fair children
were matured into two sweet and lovely women; yet the
same fleeting suns, which brought to them complete and perfect
youth, were fraught to others with decay, and all the carking
cares and querulous ailments of old age. The mother who
had watched, with keen solicitude, over their budding infancy,
over the promise of their lovely childhood, lived indeed; but
lived not to see or understand the full accomplishment of that
bright promise. Even before the elder girl had reached the
dawn of womanhood, palsy had shaken the enfeebled limbs,
and its accustomed follower — mental debility — had in no small
degree impaired the intellect of her surviving parent; but long
before her sister had reached her maturity, the limbs were
helplessly immovable, the mind was wholly clouded and estranged.

It was not now the wandering and uncertain darkness, that
flits across the veiled horizon of the mind alternately with vivid
gleams, flashes of memory, and intellect, brighter, perhaps, than
ever visited the spirit, until its partial aberration had jarred its
vital principles. It was that deep and utter torpor, blanker
than sleep; and duller — for no dreams seem to mingle with its
day-long lethargy — that absolute paralysis of all the faculties
of soul and body, which is so beautifully painted by the great
Roman satirist, as the

that still, sad, patient, silent suffering, which sits from day to
day in the one usual chair, unconscious of itself, and almost so
of all around it; easily pleased by trifles, which it forgets as
soon; deriving its sole, real, and tangible enjoyment from the
doze in the summer sunshine, or by the sparkling hearth of
winter. Such was the mother now — so utterly, so hopelessly
dependent on those bright beings, whose infancy she had nursed
so devotedly — and well was that devotedness now compensated;
for day and night, winter and summer, did those sweet
girls by turns watch over the frail querulous sexagenarian —
never both leaving her at once, one sleeping while the other
watched, attentive ever to her ceaseless cravings, patient and
mild to meet her angry and uncalled-for lamentations.

You would have thought a seclusion so entire, from all society
of their equals, must have prevented their acquiring those
usual accomplishments, those necessary arts, which every English
gentlewoman is presumed to possess, as things of course
— that they must have grown up mere ignorant, unpolished
country lasses, without taste or aspiration beyond the small
routine of their dull, daily duties — that long confinement must
have broken the higher and more spiritual parts of their fine
natural minds — that they must have become mere moping
household drudges; and so to think would be so very natural,
that it is by no means easy to conceive how it was brought to
pass, that the very opposite of this should have been the result.
The very opposite it was, however — for as there were
not in the whole West Riding two girls more beautiful than
Annabel and Marian Hawkwood, so were there surely none so
highly educated, so happy in themselves, so eminently calculated
to render others happy.

Accomplished as musicians, both, though Annabel especially,
excelled in instrumental music, while her young sister was unrivalled
in voice and execution as a songstress; both skilled in

painting; and if not poetesses, insomuch as to be stringers of
words and rhymes, certainly such, and that, too, of no mean
order, in the wider and far higher acceptation of the word.
For their whole souls were attuned to the very highest key of
sensibility; romantic, not in the weak and ordinary meaning of
the term, but as admirers of all things high, and pure, and noble;
worshippers of the beautiful, whether it were embodied
in the scenery of their native glens, in the rock, the stream,
the forest, the sunshine that clothed all of them in a rich garb
of glory, or the dread storm that veiled them all in gloom and
terror — or in the masterpieces of the schools of painting, and
of sculpture — or in the pages of the great, the glorious of all
ages — or in the deeds of men, perils encountered hardily,
sufferings constantly endured, sorrows assuaged by charitable
generosity. Such were they in the strain and tenor of their
minds; gentle, moreover, as the gentlest of created things;
humble to their inferiors, but with a proud, and self-respecting,
and considerate humility; open, and free, and frank, toward
their equals, but proud, although not wanting in loyalty and
proper reverence for the great, and almost haughty of demeanor
to their superiors, when they encountered any such, which
was, indeed, of rare and singular occurrence.

It was a strange thing, indeed, that these lone girls should
have possessed such characters; so strongly marked, so powerful,
and striking — should have acquired accomplishments so
many, and so various in their nature. It will appear, perhaps,
even stranger to merely superficial thinkers, that the formation
of these powerful characters had been for the most part brought
about by the very circumstances which would at first have appeared
most unpropitious — their solitary habits, namely, and
their seclusion — almost absolute seclusion — from the gay
world of fashion and of folly! The large and opulent county
in which their patrimony lay, was indeed then, as now, studded

with the estates, the manors, and the parks of the richest and
the noblest of England's aristocracy. Yet the deep glens and
lofty moorlands, among which Ingleborough hall was situated,
are even to this day a lonely and sequestered region; no great
post-road winds through their devious passes, and although in
the close vicinity of large and populous towns, they are, even
in the nineteenth century, but little visited, and are occupied
by a population singularly primitive and pastoral in all its
thoughts and feelings. Much more then — in those days when
carriages were seen but rarely beyond the streets of the metropolis,
when roads were wild and rugged, and intercourse between
the nearest places, unless of more than ordinary magnitude,
difficult and uncertain — was that wild district to be deemed
secluded. So much so, indeed, was this the case, that at the
time of which I write, there were not within the circle of
some twenty miles, two families of equal rank, or filling the
same station of society with the Hawkwoods. This, had the
family been in such circumstances of domestic health and happiness
as would have permitted the girls to mingle in the gayeties
of the neighborhood, would have been a severe and serious
misfortune; as they must, from the continual intercourse with
their inferiors, have contracted, in a greater or less degree, a
grossness of both mind and manner; and would, most probably,
have fallen into that most destructive habit — destructive to the
mind I mean, and to all chance of progress or advancement — the
love of queening it in low society. It was, therefore, under
their circumstances, including the loss of one parent, and the
entire bereavement of the other, fortunate in no small degree
that they were compelled to seek their pleasures and their occupations,
no less than their duties, within the sphere of the
domestic circle.

The mother who was now so feeble and so helpless, though
never a person of much intellectual energy, or indeed of much

force of any kind, was yet in the highest sense of the word, a
lady. She had seen something of the great world apart from
the rural glens which witnessed her decline; had mingled with
the gay and noble even at the court of England; and being
possessed of more than ordinary beauty, had been a favorite,
and in some degree a belle. From her, then, had her daughters
naturally and unconsciously imbibed that easy, graceful
finish, which, more than all beside, is the true stamp of gentle
birth and bearing. Long before children can be brought to
comprehend general principles or rules of convention, they can
and do acquire habits, by that strange tact of observance, which
certainly commences at a stage so early of their young frail
existence, that we can not by any effort mark its first dawning
— habits, which thus acquired can hardly be effaced at all —
which will endure unaltered, and invariable, when tastes and
practices, and modes of thought and action, contracted long,
long afterward, have faded quite away and been forgotten.
Thus was it then, with these young creatures, while they
were yet mere girls, with all the pure right impulses of childhood
bursting out fresh and fair, they had been trained up in
the midst of high, and honorable, and correct associations.
Naught low, or mean, or little, naught selfish, or dishonest, or
corrupt, had ever so much as come near to them; in the sight
of virtue, and in the practice of politeness, they had shot up
into maturity; and their maturity, of consequence, was virtuous
and polished.

In after-years devoted as they were to that sick mother, they
had no chance of unlearning anything, and thus from day to
day they went on gaining fresh graces, as it were, by deduction
from the foregone teaching, and from the fact that purity and
nature when united must be graceful — until the proudest courts
of Europe could have shown nothing, even in their most difficult
circles, that could surpass, even if it could vie with, the

easy, artless frankness, the soft and finished courtesy, the unabashed,
yet modest grace, of those two mountain maidens.

At the period when my sad tale commences — for it is no
less sad than true — the sisters had just reached the young yet
perfect bloom of mature womanhood — the elder, Annabel, having
attained her twentieth summer, her sister Marian, being
exactly one year younger; and certainly two sweeter or more
lovely girls could not be pictured or imagined — not even in the
brightest moments of the painter's or poet's inspiration. They
were both tall and beautifully formed — both had sweet low-toned
voices — that excellent thing in woman! but here all
personal resemblance ended; for Annabel, the elder, had a
complexion pure and transparent as the snow of the untrodden
glacier before the sun has kissed it into roseate blushes, and
quite as colorless — her features were of the finest classic outline.
The smooth fair brow, the perfect Grecian nose, the
short curve of the upper lip, the exquisite arch of the small
mouth, the chiselled lines of the soft rounded chin, might have
served for a model to a sculptor, whereby to mould a mountain
nymph or Naiad. Her rich luxuriant hair was of a light and
sunny brown; her eyes of a clear and lustrous blue with a soft
languid and half-melancholy tenderness, for their more usual
expression, which suited well with the calm placid air that
was almost habitual to her beautiful features. To this no contrast
more complete could have been offered, than by the widely
different style of Marian's loveliness. Though younger than
her sister, her figure was more full and rounded — so much so,
that it reached the very point where symmetry is combined with
voluptuousness; yet was there nothing in the least degree voluptuous
in the expression of her bright artless face. Her forehead,
higher than Annabel's and broader, was as smooth and
as white as polished marble; her brows were well defined and
black as ebony; as were the long, long lashes that fringed her

laughing eyes — eyes of the brightest, lightest azure, that ever
glanced with merriment or melted into love — her nose was
small and delicate, but turned a little upward, so as to add,
however, rather than detract from the tout ensemble of her arch,
roguish beauty; her mouth was not very small, but exquisitely
formed, with lips redder than anything in nature, to which lips
can be well compared; and filled with teeth, regular, white,
and beautifully even. Fair as her sister's, and like hers, showing
everywhere the tiny veins of azure meandering below the
milky skin, Marian's complexion was yet as bright as morning,
with faint rosy tints, and red warm blushes, succeeding one
another, or vanishing away, and leaving the cheek pearly white
as one emotion followed and effaced another in her pure innocent
mind.

Her hair, profuse in its luxuriant flow, was of a deep, dark
brown, that might almost have been called black — but for a
thousand glancing golden lights, and warm, rich shadows, that
varied its smooth surface with the varying sunshine — and
was worn in a thick, massive plait, low down in the neck behind,
while on either side the brow it was trained off and taught
to cluster in front of each tiny ear, in an abundant maze of interwoven
curls, close and mysteriously enlaced, as are the tendrils
of the wild vine, which fluttering on each warm and
blnshing cheek, fell down the swan-like neck in heavy natural
ringlets.

But to describe the features is to give no idea, in the least,
of Marian's real beauty. There was a radiant, dazzling lustre,
that leaped out of her every feature, lightening from her quick
speaking eyes, and playing in the dimples of her bewitching
smile, so intoxicating to the beholder, that he would dwell upon
her face entranced, and know that it was lovely, and feel that
it was far more lovely, far more enthralling, than any he had
ever looked upon before. Yet, when without the sphere of

that enchantment, he would be all unable to say wherein consisted
its unmatched attraction.

Between the natural disposition and temperaments of the two
sisters, there was, perhaps, even a wider difference than between
the characteristics of their personal beauty, for Annabel
was calm and mild, and singularly placid; not in her manners
only, but in the whole tenor of her thoughts, and words, and
actions — there was a sort of gentle melancholy, that was not
altogether melancholy either, pervading her every tone of voice,
her every change of feature. She was not exactly grave, or
pensive, or subdued; for she could smile very joyously at times,
could act upon emergencies with readiness, and quickness, and
decision; and was at all times prompt in the expression of her
confirmed sentiments. But there was a very remarkable tranquillity
in her mode of doing everything she did; betokening
fully the presence of a decided principle, directing her at every
step, so that she was rarely agitated, even by accidents of the
most sudden and alarming character, and never actuated by any
rapid impulse.

The very opposite of this was Marian Hawkwood; for although
quite as upright and pure-minded as her sister — and
what is more, of a temper quite as amiable and sweet, yet was
her mood as changeful as an April day; although it was more
used to mirth and joyous laughter than to frowns or tears either,
yet had she tears as ready at any tale of sorrow, as are the
fountains of the spring-shower in the cloud, and eloquent frowns
and eyes that lightened their quick indignation at any outrage,
or oppression, or high-handed deed. Her cheek would crimson
with the tell-tale blood, her flesh would seem to thrill upon her
bones, her voice would choke, and her eyes swim with sympathetic
drops, whenever she read, or spoke, or heard of any noble
deed, whether of gallant daring, or of heroic self-denial.
Her tongue was prompt always as the sword of the knight-errant

to shelter the defenceless, to shield the innocent, to right the
wronged, and sometimes to avenge the absent. Artless herself,
and innocent in every thought and feeling, she set no guard
on either but as she felt and thought, so she spoke out and
acted, fearless, even as she was unconscious of any wrong;
defying misconstruction, and half inclined to doubt the possibility
of evil in the minds of others; so foreign did it seem, and
so impossible to her own natural, and, as it were, instinctive
sense of right.

Yet although such, in all respects, as I have striven to depict
them, the one all quick and flashing impulse, the other all
reflective and considerate principle, it was most wonderful how
seldom there was any clashing of opinion, or diversity of judgment,
as to what was to be done, what left undone, between the
lovely sisters. Marian would it is true, often jump at once to
conclusions, and act rapidly upon them too, at which the more
reflective Annabel would arrive only after some consideration;
but it did not occur more often that the one had reason to repent
of her precipitation, than the other of her over-caution.
Neither, indeed, had much cause for remorse of this kind at
all; for all the impulses of the one, all the thoughts and principles
of the other, were alike pure and kindly. With words,
however, it was not quite the same; for it must be admitted,
that Marian oftentimes said things, how unfrequently soever she
did aught, which she would willingly have recalled afterward.
Not, indeed, that she ever said anything unkind, or wrong in
itself, and rarely anything that could give pain to another, unless
that pain were richly merited indeed; but that she gradually
came to learn — long before she learned to restrain her
impulses — that it may be very often unwise to speak, what in
itself is wise — and very often, if not wrong, yet certainly
imprudent, and of evil consequence, to give loud utterance even
to right opinions.

3. CHAPTER III.

Such were the persons, such the dispositions of the fair
heiresses of Ingleborough at the time when they had attained the
ages I have specified; and certainly, although their spheres of
usefulness would have appeared at first sight, circumscribed,
and the range of their enjoyments very narrow, there rarely
have been seen two happier or more useful beings than Annabel
and Marian Hawkwood, in this wide world of sin and
sorrow.

The care of their bereaved and hapless parent occupied, it
is true, the greater portion of their time; yet they found many
leisure hours to devote to visiting the poor, aiding the wants
of the needy, consoling the sorrows of those who mourned, and
sympathizing with the pleasures of the happy, among their
humble neighbors. To them this might be truly termed a work
of love and pleasure; for it is questionable whether from any
other source the lovely girls derived a higher or more satisfactory
enjoyment, than from their hours of charity among their
village pensioners.

Next in the scale of happiness stood, doubtless, the society
of the old vicar of that pastoral parish; a man who had been
their father's friend and counsellor in those young days of college
friendship, when the fresh heart is uppermost in all, and
selfishness a dormant passion; a man old enough almost to
have been their grandsire, but with a heart as young and as
cheery as a boy's — an intellect accomplished in the deepest
lore of the schools, both classical and scientific, and skilled
thoroughly in all the niceties and graces of French, and Spanish,
and Italian literature — a man who had known courts and

camps, too, for a short space in his youth; who had seen much
and suffered much, and yet enjoyed, not a little, in his acquaintance
with the world; and who, from sights, and sufferings, and
enjoyments, had learned that if there is much evil, there is yet
more of good, even in this world — had learned, while rigid to
his own faults, to be most lenient to his neighbor's failings —
had learned that charity should be the fruit of wisdom! — and
had learned all this only to practise it in all his daily walks, to
inculcate it in all his weekly lessons.

This aged man, and his scarce less aged wife, living hardly
a stone's throw from the hall, had grown almost to think themselves
a portion of the family; and surely no blood kindred
could have created stronger ties of kindness than had the familiarity
of long acquaintance, the confidence of old hereditary
love. Lower yet in the round of their enjoyments, but still
a constant source of blameless satisfaction, were their books,
their music, and their drawings; the management of their
household, the cultivation of their lovely garden, the ministering
to the wants of their loved birds and flowers. Thus, all
sequestered and secluded from the world, placed in the midst
of calm, unostentatious duties, and cares which to them were
no source of care, though they had never danced at a ball, nor
blushed at the praise of their own beauty flowing from eloquent
lips, nor listened to a lover's suit, queens might have envied
the felicity, the calm, pure, peaceful happiness of Annabel and
Marian.

They were, indeed, too happy! I do not mean too happy to
be virtuous, too happy to be mindful of and grateful to the Giver
of all joy — but, as the common phrase runs, too happy for
their happiness to be enduring. This is a strange belief — a
wondrous superstition! — and yet it has been common to all
ages. The Greeks, those wild poetical dreamers, imagined that
their vain gods, made up of moral attributes, envied the bliss of

men, fearing that wretched earthlings should vie in happiness
with the possessors of Olympus. They sang in their dark
mystic choruses:
and, though their other doctrines of that insuperable destiny —
that absolute necessity, to resist which is needless labor — and
of ancestral guilt, through countless generations, would seem
to militate against it, there was no more established faith, and
no more prevalent opinion, than that unwonted fortunes were
necessarily followed by most unusual wo. Hence, perhaps,
the stern self-mortification of the middle ages — hence, certainly,
the vulgar terror prevalent more or less among all classes,
and in every time and country, that children are too beautiful,
too prematurely clever, too good to be long-lived — that happiness
is too great to be lasting — that mornings are too fine to
auger stormless days!

And we — aye! we ourselves — we of a better faith, and
purer dispensation — we half believe all this, and more than
half tremble at it, although, in truth, there is no cause for fear
in the belief — since, if there be aught of truth in the mysterious
creed, which facts do in a certain sense seem to bear out,
we can but think, we can not but perceive, that this is but a
varied form of care and misery, vouchsafed by the Great All-perfect
toward his frail creatures — that this is but a merciful
provision, to hinder us from laying up for ourselves “treasures
upon earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, and where thieves
break through and steal” — a provision to restrain us from forgetting,
in the small temporary bliss of the present, the boundless
and incomparable beatitude of the future — to warn us
against bartering, like Esau, our birthright, for a mess of pottage!

But I am now called to follow out this train of thought, suggested
by the change in the fortunes of those to whom I am
performing the part of historian; by the change, I say, in their
fortunes — a change, too, arising from the very circumstances,
as is frequently the case, which seemed to promise the most
fairly for their improvement and their permanence. Oh! how
blind guides are we! even the most far-sighted of us all! —
how weak and senseless judges, even the most sagacious —
how false and erring prophets, even the wisest and the best!

It was, as I have said already, late in the summer, where-from
Annabel reckoned her twentieth and Marian her nineteenth
year — very late in the last month of summer, an hour or two
before the sunset of as beautiful an evening as ever smiled upon
the face of the green earth. The sky was nearly cloudless,
though a thin gauze-like haze had floated up from the horizon,
and so far veiled the orb of the great sun, that the eye could
gaze undazzled on his glories; and the whole air was full of a
rich golden light, which flooded the level meadows with its
lustre, except where they were checkered by the long cool
blue shadows projected from the massive clumps of noble forest-trees,
which, singly or in groups, diversified the lonely vale,
and gilded the tall, slender steeple of the old village-church,
and glanced in living fire from the broad oriel windows of the
hall.

Such was the evening, and so beautiful the prospect, with
every sound and sight in perfect harmony — the sharp squeak
of the rapid swifts, wheeling their airy circles around the distant
spire, the full and liquid melodies of thrush and blackbird
from out the thorn-bushes upon the lawn, the lowing of the
cows, returning from their pasture to pay the evening tribute,
the very cawing of the homeward rooks, blended by distance
into a continuous and soothing murmur, the rippling music of
the stream, the low sound of the west wind in the foliage of

the sycamores, the far shout of the children, happy at their release
from school, the carol of a solitary milkmaid, combining
to make up a music as sweet as can be heard or dreamed of by
the sleeping poet. That lovely picture was surveyed, and that
delicious melody was listened to, by eyes and ears well fitted
to appreciate their loveliness: for, at an open casement of a great
parlor in the hall, with furniture all covered with those elegant
appliances of female industry — well-executed drawings, and
books, and instruments of music, and work-baskets, and frames
for embroidery — which show so pleasantly that the apartment
is one not of show, but of calm home-enjoyment — at an open
casement sat Annabel, alone — for the presence of the frail paralytic
being, who dozed in her arm-chair, at the further end of
the room, can not be held to constitute society. Marian, for
the first time in her life, was absent from her home, on a visit,
which had already endured nearly six weeks, to the only near
relative of the family who was yet living — a younger sister of
her mother, who had married many years ago a clergyman,
whose piety and talents had raised him to a stall in the cathedral
church of York, where he resided with his wife — a childless
couple.

This worthy pair had passed a portion of the summer at the
hall, and when returning to the metropolis of the county, had
prevailed on their younger niece, not altogether without difficulty,
to go with them for a few weeks, and see a little society
on a scale something more extended than that which her native
vales could offer. It was the first time in their lives that the
sisters had been parted for more than a few days, and now the
hours were beginning to appear very long to Annabel; as
weeks were running into months, and the gorgeous suns of
summer were fast preparing to give place to the cold dews and
frosty winds of autumn. The evening meal was over, and a
solitary thing was that meal now, which used to be the most

delightful of the day; and hastily did the lonely sister hurry
it over, thinking all the while what might be Marian's occupation
at the moment, and whether she too was engaged in
thoughts concerning her far friends, and the fair home of her
childhood.

It was, then, in a mood half-melancholy and half-listless, that
Annabel was gazing from her window, down the broad valley
to the eastward, marvelling at the beauty of the scenery, though
she had noted every changing hue that flitted over the far purple
hills a thousand times before. She listened to every sweet
familiar sound; and yet, at the same time, pondered, as if she
were quite unconscious of all that met her senses, about things
which she fancied might be happening at York, when on a
sudden, her attention was aroused by a dense cloud of dust,
rising beyond the river, upon the line of the high road, and
sweeping up the valley, with a progress so unusually rapid as
to indicate that the objects, which it veiled from view, must be
in more than commonly quick motion. For a few moments
she watched this little marvel narrowly, but without any apprehension
or even any solicitude; until, as it drew nearer, she
could at times see bright flashes, as if of polished metal, gleaming
out through the murky wreaths, and feathers waving in
the air.

The year was that, in which the hapless Charles, all hopes
of reconciliation with his parliament being decidedly frustrated,
displayed the banner of civil war, and drew the sword against
his subjects. The rumors of the coming strife had circulated,
like the dread subterraneous rumblings which harbinger the
earthquake, through all the country far and near; sad omens of
approaching evil! and more distinctly were they bruited through
Yorkshire, in consequence of the attempt which had been made
by the royal party to secure Hull, with all its magazines and
shipping — frustrated by the energy and spirit of the Hothams

— so that, as soon as she perceived that the dust was beyond
all doubt stirred up by a small party of well-appointed horse,
Annabel entertained no doubts as to the meaning, but many serious
apprehensions as to the cause of the present visitation.

4. CHAPTER IV.

The road, by which the cavaliers were proceeding, though
well-made and passable at all times, was no considerable thoroughfare;
no large or important towns lay on its route; nay,
no large villages were situated on its margin. It was a devious
winding way, leading to many a homely farmhouse, many a sequestered
hamlet, and affording to the good rustics a means of
carrying their wheat and eggs and butter, or driving their fat
cattle and black-face moorland sheep to market; but it was not
the direct line between any two points, or places, worthy even
of a passing notice. It is true, that some twelve or fifteen
miles down the valley there was a house or two tenanted by
gentry — one that might by a liberal courtesy have been designated
a castle; but above Ingleborough hall, to northwestward,
there was no manor-house or dwelling of the aristocracy at all,
until the road left the ghylls — as those wild dens are designated
— and joined the line of the great northern turnpike.

It was extremely singular, then, to say the least, that a gay
troop of riders should appear suddenly in that wild spot, so far
from anything that would be likely to attract them; and Annabel
sat some time longer by the window, wondering, and at the
same time fearing, although in truth she scarce knew what.
Ere long at a mile's distance she saw them halt, and after a few
moments' conversation with a farming-man on the wayside, as
if to inquire their route, turn suddenly down a narrow by-road

leading to the high narrow bridge of many arches, which
crossed the noble river and gave the only access to the secluded
site of Ingleborough. When she saw this, however, her
perturbation became very great; for well she knew that there
lay nothing in that direction except one little market-town, far
distant, and a few scattered farmhouses on the verge of the
moors, so that there could be but little doubt that Ingleborough
was indeed their destination.

The very moment that she arrived at this conclusion, Annabel
called a serving-man, and bade him run quick to the vicarage,
and pray good Doctor Somers to come up to her instantly,
as she was in great strait, and fain would speak with him; and
at the same time, with an energy of character that hardly could
have been expected from one so young and delicate, ordered
the men of the household — including in those days the fowler
and falconer, and half a dozen grooms and many a supernumerary
more, whom we in these degenerate times have long discarded
as incumbrances, to have their arms in readiness — for
every manor-house then had its regular armory — and to prepare
the great bell of the hall, to summon all the tenants on
the instant, in case such proceedings should be needful.

In a few moments the good gray-haired vicar came, almost
breathless from the haste with which he had crossed the little
space between the vicarage and the manor, and a little while
afterward his wife followed him, anxious to learn as soon as
possible what could have so disturbed the quiet tenor of a mind
so regulated by high principles, and garrisoned by holy thoughts,
as Annabel's. Their humble dwelling, though scarce a stone's
throw from the hall, was screened by a projecting knoll feathered
with dense and shadowy coppice, hiding from it entirely
the road by which the horsemen were advancing; so that the
worthy couple had not perceived, or suspected, anything to justify
the fears of Annabel, until they were both standing in her

presence. Then, while the worthy doctor was proffering his
assistance, and his good wife inquiring eagerly what was amiss,
they caught sight of that gay company of cavaliers, with feathers
waving and scarfs fluttering in the wind, and gold embroideries
glancing to the sun; as, having left the dusty road, they
wheeled through the green meadows, and flashed suddenly upon
their eyes — a spectacle as unexpected as it was gorgeous and
exciting!

“Who can they be? What possibly can bring them hither?”
exclaimed Annabel, pointing with evident trepidation toward
the rapidly-approaching horsemen. “I fear — oh! I greatly
fear some heavy ill is coming — but I have ordered all the men
to take their arms, and the great bell will bring us twenty tenants
in half as many minutes! What can it be, good doctor?”

“Indeed, I know not, Annabel,” replied the good man, smiling
cheerfully as he spoke; “in truth I know not, nor can at
all conjecture; but be quite sure of this, dear girl, that they will
do, to us at least, no evil! — they are King Charles's men, without
doubt, churchmen and cavaliers, all of them! — any one can
see that! and, though I know not that we have much to fear
from either party, from them at least we have no earthly cause
for apprehension. I will go forth, however, to meet them, and
to learn their errand — meantime, fear nothing.”

“Oh! you mistake me,” she answered at once; “oh! you
mistake me very much; for I did not even for a moment fear
personally anything; it was for my poor mother I was first
alarmed; and all our good neighbors; and indeed all the country
around, that shows so beautifully and happy this fair evening!
— oh! but this civil war is a dread thing; and dread I fear
will be the reckoning of those who make it.”

“Who make it without cause, my daughter! A dreadful
thing it is at all times, but it may be a necessary, ay! and a
holy thing — when freedom or religion is at stake! but we will

talk of this at another time; for see, they have already reached
the furthest gate, and I must speak with them before they enter
here, let them be who they may.”

And with the words, pressing her hand with fatherly affection,
“Farewell,” he said, “be of good cheer. I purpose to
return forthwith.” And then he left the room, and hurrying
down the steps of the porch, walked far more rapidly than
seemed to suit his advanced years and sedentary habits, across
the park to meet the gallant company.

A gallant company, indeed, it was, and such as was but
rarely seen in that wild region — being the train of a young
gentleman, of some eight or nine and twenty years, splendidly
mounted, and dressed in the magnificent fashion of those days,
in a half-military costume; for his buff coat was lined throughout
with rich white satin, and fringed and looped with silver,
a falling collar of rich Flanders lace flowing down over his
steel gorget, and a broad scarf of blue silk supporting his long
silver-hilted rapier. By his side rode another person, not certainly
a menial servant, and yet clearly not a gentleman of
birth and lineage; and after these a dozen or more armed attendants
followed, all wearing the blue scarf and black feathers
of the royalists, all nobly mounted, and accoutred, like regular
troopers, with sword and dagger, pistols and musquetoons, although
they wore no breastplates, nor any sort of defensive
armor.

A brace of jet-black grayhounds, without a speck of white
upon their sleek and glistening hides, ran bounding merrily beside
their master's stirrup, and a magnificent goshawk sat hooded
on his wrist, with silver bells and richly-decorated jesses.
So much had the ladies observed, even before the old man
reached the party; but when he did so, and paused for a moment
to address the leader, that gentleman immediately dismounted
from his horse; and after shaking hands, cordially,

the two advanced together, apparently engaged in eager conversation,
toward the entrance of the hall.

This went far, on the instant, to restore confidence to Annabel;
but when they came so near that their faces could be seen
distinctly from the windows, and she could mark a well-pleased
smile upon the venerable features of her friend, she was completely
reassured. A single glance, moreover, at the face of
the stranger, showed her that the most timid maiden need
hardly feel a moment's apprehension, even if he were her country's
or her faction's foe; for it was not merely handsome, striking,
and distinguished, but such as indicates, or is supposed to
indicate, the presence of a kindly disposition and good heart.
Annabel had not much time, indeed, for making observations at
that time; for it was scarce a minute before they had ascended
the short flight of steps, which led to the stone porch, and entered
the door of the vestibule. A moment longer, and they
came into the parlor, the worthy vicar leading the young man
by the hand, as if he were a friend of ten years' standing.

“Annabel,” he exclaimed, in a joyous voice, as he crossed
the threshold of the room, “this is the young Lord de Vaux,
son of your honored father's warmest and oldest friends, and in
years long gone by, but unforgotten, my kindest patron. He
has come hither, bearing letters from his father — knowing not
until now that you, my child, were so long since bereaved —
letters of commendation, praying the hospitality of Ingleborough,
and the best Influence of the name of Hawkwood, to
levy men to serve King Charles in the approaching war. I
have already told him—”

“How glad, how welcome, doubtless, would have been his
coming” — answered Annabel, advancing easily to meet the
youthful nobleman, although a deep blush covered all her pale
features, as she performed her unaccustomed duty — “had my
dear father been alive, or my poor mother” — casting a rapid

glance toward the invalid — “been in health to greet him. As
it is” — she continued, “the Lord de Vaux, I doubt not in the
least, will pardon any imperfections in our hospitality, and believe,
if in aught we err, it will be error not of friendliness, or
of feeling, but of experience only; seeing I am but a young
mistress of a household. You, my kind friend, and Mistress
Somers, will doubtless tarry with us, while my Lord de Vaux
gives us the favor of his presence.”

“Loath should I be, indeed, dear lady, thus to intrude upon
your sorrows, could I at all avoid it,” replied the cavalier —
“and charming, as it must needs be, to enjoy the hospitalities
tendered by such a one as you, I do assure you, were I myself
concerned alone, I would remount my horse at once, and
ride away, rather than force myself upon your courtesy. But,
when I tell you that my father's strong opinion holds it a matter
of importance — importance almost vital — to the king, and
to the cause of church and state in England, that I should levy
some force here of cavaliers — where there be so few heads of
noble houses living — to act in union with Sir Philip Musgrave,
in the north, and with Sir Marmaduke Langdale, I both trust
and believe that you will overlook the trouble and intrusion, in
fair consideration of the motives which impel me.”

“Pray,” said she, smiling gayly, “pray, my Lord de Vaux,
let us now leave apology and compliment — most unaffectedly
and truly, I am glad to receive you both as the son of my father's
valued friend, and as a faithful servant of our most gracious
king — we will do our best to entertain you; and Doctor Somers
will aid you, with his counsel and experience, in furthering
your military levies. How left you the good earl, your father?
I have heard mine speak of him many times, and ever in the
highest terms of praise, when I was but a little girl — and my
poor mother much more recently; before this sad calamity
affected her so fearfully.”

Her answer, as it was intended, had the effect of putting an
end to all formality, and setting the young nobleman completely
at ease. The conversation took a general tone, and was maintained
on all sides with sufficient spirit, until — when Annabel
retired for a little space, to conduct her mother to her chamber
— De Vaux found himself wondering how a mere country-girl,
who had lived a life so secluded and domestic, should have acquired
graces, of both mind and manner, such as he never had
discovered in court ladies; while she was struck, even in a
greater degree, by the frank, unaffected bearing, the gay wit, and
sparkling anecdote, blended with many a touch of deeper feeling,
which characterized the youthful nobleman's conversation.

After a little while she reappeared, and, with her, was announced
the evening meal, the pleasant, old-fashioned supper;
and, as he sat beside her, while she presided, full of calm, modest
self-possession, at the head of her hospitable board, with no
one to encourage her, or lend her countenance, except the good
old vicar and his homely helpmate, he could not but draw fresh
comparisons, all in her favor, too, between the quiet, graceful
confidence of the ingenuous girl before him, and the minauderies
and the meretricious airs of the court dames, who had been
hitherto the objects of his passing admiration.

Cheerfully, then, and pleasantly, the evening passed away;
and when upon her little couch, hard by the invalid's sick bed,
Annabel thought over the events of the past day, she felt concerning
young De Vaux, rather as if he had been an old familiar
friend, with whom she had renewed an intercourse long interrupted,
than as of a mere acquaintance, whom that day had
first introduced, and whom the next might possibly remove for
ever. Something there was, when they met next, at breakfast,
on the following morning, of blushing bashfulness in Annabel,
which he had not observed, nor she before experienced; but it
passed rapidly away, and left her self-possessed and tranquil.

And surely in the sparkling eye, the eager haste, with which
he broke away from his conversation with Doctor Somers, as
she entered — in his hand half-extended, and then half-awkwardly,
half-timidly withdrawn, there was much indication of
excited feeling, widely at variance with the polite and even
formal mannerism inculcated and practised in the court of the
unhappy Charles. It needs not, however, to dwell on passing
conversations, to narrate every trifling incident. The morning
meal once finished, De Vaux mounted his horse, and rode forth
in accordance with the directions of the loyal clergyman, to
visit such among the neighboring farmers, as were most likely
to be able to assist him in levying a horse regiment.

A few hours passed; and he returned full of high spirits and
hot confidence — he had met everywhere assurances of good
will to the royal cause; had succeeded in enlisting some ten
or more stout and hardy youths, and had no doubt of finally accomplishing
the object which he had in view, to the full height
of his aspirations.

After dinner, which, in those primitive days, was served at
noon, he was engaged for a time in making up despatches for
his father, which having been sent off by one of his own trusty
servants to the castle in Northumberland, he went out, and
joined his lovely hostess in the sheltered garden, which I have
described above; and there they lingered until the sun was
sinking in the west, behind the huge and purple-headed hills
that screened the horizon in that direction. The evening circle
and the social meal succeeded; and when they parted for
the night, if Annabel and young De Vaux could not be said to
be enamored, as indeed they could scarcely be as yet, they had
at least made so much progress to that end, that each esteemed
the other the most agreeable and charming person, it had been
hitherto their fortune to encounter. And — although this was
decidedly the furthest point to which the thoughts of Annabel

extended — when he had lain down on his bed, with the sweet
rays of the harvest moon flooding his room with quiet lustre,
and the voice of the murmuring rivulet, and the low flutter of
the west wind in the giant sycamores, blending themselves into
a soft and soothing melody — the young lord felt himself considering
how gracefully that fair pale girl would fill the place
which had been long left vacant by his mother in the grand
hall of Gilsland castle.

5. CHAPTER V.

Another and another day succeeded — a week slipped
away — a second and a third followed it; and still the ranks of
the royal regiment, though they filled rapidly, had many vacancies,
and arms had yet to be provided, and standards and musicians;
messengers went and came continually between the
castle and the manor, and all was haste and confusion in the
lone glens of Wharfdale. Meantime a change was wrought in
Annabel's demeanor, and all who saw remarked it — there was
a brighter glow than ever had been seen before, in her transparent
cheeks; her eyes sparkled almost as brilliantly as Marian's;
her lips were frequently arrayed in bright and beaming
smiles; her step was light and springy as a young fawn's on
the mountain. Annabel was in love, and had discovered that
she was so — Annabel was beloved and knew it — the young
lord's declaration and the old earl's consent had come together;
and the sweet maiden's heart was given, and her hand promised,
almost before the asking. Joy! joy! was there not joy in
Ingleborough?

The good old vicar's tranquil air of satisfaction; the loud and
eloquent mirth of his kind-hearted housewife — the merry, gay

congratulations of wild Marian, who wrote from York, half
crazy with excitement and delight — the evident and lovely
happiness of the young promised bride — what pen of man may
even aspire to write them. All was decided — all arranged —
the marriage was, so far, at least, to be held private, that no festivities
or public merriment should bruit it to the world, until the
civil strife should be decided, and the king's power established;
which all men fancied, at that day, it would be by a single battle
— and which, had Rupert wheeled upon the flank of Essex
at Edge-Hill, instead of chasing the discomfited and flying horse
of the Roundheads, miles from the field of battle, would probably
have been the case.

The old earl had sent the wedding gifts to his son's chosen
bride, had promised to be present at the nuptials, the day of
which was fixed already; but it had been decided that when
De Vaux should be forced to join the royal armies his young
wife should continue to reside at Ingleborough, with her bereaved
mother and fond sister, until the wished-for peace should
unite England once again in bonds of general amnity; and the
bridegroom find honorable leisure to lead his wife in state to
his paternal mansions.

Days sped away — how fast they seemed to fly to those happy
young lovers! How was the very hour of their first interview
noted, and marked with white in the deep tablets of their
minds — how did they shyly, yet fondly recount each to the
other the first impressions of their growing fondness — how did
they bless the cause that brought them thus together. Proh
cœca mens mortalium! — oh! the short-sighted scope of mortal
vision! alas! for one — for both!

The wedding day was fixed, and now was fast approaching;
and hourly was Marian, with their good uncle and his dame,
expected at the hall, and wished for, and discoursed of by the
lovers — “and oh!” — would Annabel say, half-sportively, and

half in earnest — “well was it for my happiness, De Vaux, that
she was absent when you first came hither, for had you seen
her first, her far superior beauty, her bright wild radiant face,
her rare arch naïveté, her flashing wit, and beautiful enthusiasm
would — must have captivated you all at once — and what had
then become of your poor Annabel?”

And then would the young lord vow — that had he met her
first in the most glorious courts of Europe, with all the gorgeous
beauties of the world to rival her, she would alone have
been the choice of his soul — his soul, first touched by her, of
woman! And then he would ask in lowered tones, and with a
sly simplicity of manner, whether, if he had loved another, she
could have still loved him; to which, with all the frank and
fearless purity that was so beautiful a trait in Annabel — “Oh
yes —” she would reply, and gaze with calm reliance, as she
did so, into her lover's eyes — “oh yes, dear Ernest — and then
how miserably wretched must I have been through my whole
life hereafter. Oh! yes, I loved you — though then I knew it
not, nor indeed thought at all about it, until you spoke to me —
I loved you dearly! — and I believe it would almost have
killed me to look upon you afterward as the wife of another.”

The wedding day was but a fortnight distant; and strange to
say it was the very day, two months gone, which had seen
their meeting. Wains had arrived from Gilsland, loaded with
arms and uniforms, standards and ammunitions; two brothers
of young De Vaux, young gallant cavaliers, had come, partly to
officer the men, partly to do fit honor to their brother's nuptials.

The day, although the season had now advanced far into
brown October was sunny, mild, and beautiful; the regiment
had, for the first time, mustered in arms in Ingleborough park,
and a gay show they made, with their glittering casques and
corslets, fresh from the armorer's anvil, and their fluttering
scarfs, and dancing plumes, and bright emblazoned banners.

The sun was in the act of setting — De Vaux and Annabel
were watching his decline from the same window in the hall
whence she had first discovered his unexpected coming; when,
as on that all eventful evening, a little dust was seen arising on
the high road beyond the river; and, in a moment, a small
mounted party became visible, amidst which might be readily
described the fluttering of female garments!

“It is my sister” — exclaimed Annabel, jumping up on the
instant, and clasping her hands eagerly — “it is my dear, dear
sister — come, Ernest, come, let us go and meet dear Marian.”
No time was lost, but arm-in-arm the lovers sallied forth, and
met the little train just on this side of the park-gate.

Marian sprang from her horse, light as a spirit of the air, and
rushed into her sister's arms, and clung there with a long and
lingering embrace, and as she raised her head, a bright tear
glittered on either silky eyelash. De Vaux advanced to greet
her, but as he did so, earnestly persuing the lineaments of his
fair future sister, he was most obviously embarrassed, his manner
was confused, and even agitated, his words faltered. And
she, whose face had been a second before, beaming with the
bright crimson of excitement — whose eye had looked round
eagerly and gladly to mark the chosen of her sister — she turned
as pale as ashes — brow, cheeks, and lips — pale, almost livid!
— and her eye fell abashed, and did not rise again till he had
finished speaking. None noticed it but Annabel; for all the
party were engaged in gay congratulations, and — they recovering
themselves immediately — nothing more passed, that
could create surmise — but she did notice it, and her heart sank
for a moment, and all that evening she was unusually grave
and silent; and, had not her usual demeanor been so exceedingly
calm and subdued, her strange dejection must have been
seen, and wondered at, by her assembled kinsfolk.

6. CHAPTER VI.

The morning after Marian's arrival at the manor, was one of
those bright lovely dawns, sure harbingers of sweet and sunny
days, that often interrupt the melancholy progress of an English
autumn; fairer and softer, as the season waxed older, and more
enchanting from the contrast, which they can not fail to suggest,
between their balmy mildness, and the chilly winds and gloomy
fogs of the approaching winter. The sky was altogether cloudless,
yet it had nothing of the deep azure hue which it presents
in summer, resembling in its tints and its transparency a canopy,
if such a thing could be, of living aqua-marine, and kindled
by a flood of pure, pale yellow lustre.

None of the trees were wholly leafless, though none, perhaps,
unless it were a few old oaks, but had lost something of
their summer foliage; and their changed colors varying from
the deepest green, through all the shades of yellow, down to
the darkest amber, although prophetic of their coming doom,
and therefore saddening, with a sort of chastened spiritual sorrow,
the heart of the observer, added a solemn beauty to the
scenery, that well accorded with its grand and romantic character.

The vast round-headed hills, seen through the filmy haze
which floated over them, filling up their dells and hollows,
showed every intermediate hue from the red russet of their
heathery foreground, to the rich purple of their furthest peaks.
The grass, which had not yet begun to lose its verdant freshness,
was thickly meshed with gossamer, all sprinkled by the
pure and plenteous dews, and flashing like a net of diamonds
upon a ground of emerald velvet, to the early sunbeams.

It was summer — late indeed in that lovely season, but still
full summer, with all her garniture of green, her pomp of full-blown
flowers — the glorious mature womanhood of the year!
when Marian left her home. Not a trace of decay or change
was visible on its bright brow, not a leaf of its embroideries
was altered, not a bud in its garland was blighted. She had
returned; and everything, though beautiful and glowing, bore
the plain stamp of approaching dissolution. The west wind
blew as softly as in June through the tall sycamores, but after
every breath, while all was lulled and peaceful, the broad sere
leaves came whirling down from the shaken branches, on which
their hold was now so slight, that but the whisper of a sigh was
needed to detach them; the skies — the waters — were as pure
as ever, as beautifully clear and lucid, but in their brightness
there was a chill and glassy glitter, as different from their warm
sheen under a July sun, as is the keen unnatural radiance of a
blue eye in the consumptive girl, from its rich lustrous light in
a mature and healthy woman.

Was it the contemplation of this change that brought so sad
a cloud over the brow of lovely Marian Hawkwood; so dull a
gloom into her speaking eye; so dread a paleness upon the
ripe damask of her cheek? Sad indeed always is such contemplation
— sorrowful and grave thoughts must it awake in the
minds of those who think the least, to revisit a fair well-known
scene which they have quitted in the festal flush of summer,
when all the loveliness they dwelt on so fondly is flown or flying.
It brings a chill upon the spirit, like that which touches
the last guest —

It wakes a passing anguish, like that which thrills to the
heart's core of him, who, after years of wandering in a foreign
clime, returns to find the father, whom he left still in the prime
of vigorous and active manhood, bowed, bent, gray-haired, and
paralytic; the mother, whom he saw at their last parting, glorious
in summer beauty, withered, and wrinkled, and bereft of
every trace of former comeliness. All this it does — at times
to all! to the reflective always! — the solitary contemplation of
the decaying year.

Yet it was not this alone, it was not this at all, that blanched
the cheek and dimmed the glance of Marian, as at a very early
hour of the morning she was sauntering alone, with downcast
eyes and slow uncertain gait, beside the margin of the stream,
in the sheltered garden. For she did not, in truth, seem to
contemplate at all the face of external nature, or so much as to
note the changes which had taken place during her absence;
yet were those changes very great, and nowhere probably so
strongly marked as in the very spot where she was wandering,
for when she stood there last to cull a nosegay, ere she parted,
the whole of that fair nook was glowing with the brightest colors,
and redolent with the most fragrant perfumes, while hundreds
of feathered songsters were filling every brake and
thicket with bursts of joyous melody — and now only a few, the
hardiest of the late autumnal flowers, displayed their scattered
blossoms, and those too crisp and faded, among sere leaves and
withered branches; while, for the mellow warblings of the
thrush and blackbird, nothing was heard except the feeble
piping of a solitary robin, mixed with the wailing rush of the
swollen streamlet.

For nearly an hour she walked to and fro buried in deep
and melancholy silence, and thinking, as it seemed from her
air and gestures, most profoundly — occasionally she paused
for a few seconds in her walk to and fro, and stood still,

gazing abstractedly on some spot in the withered herbage, on
some pool of the brooklet, with her mind evidently far away,
and once or twice she clasped her hands, and wrung them passionately,
and sighed very deeply. While she was yielding thus
to some deep inward sorrow — for it could be no trivial passing
grief that had so suddenly and so completely changed so quick
and gay a spirit — a gentle footstep sounded upon the gravel-walk,
behind a cluster of thick leafy lilacs, and in a moment
Annabel stepped from their screen upon the mossy greensward.
Her pale and pensive features were even paler and more thoughtful
than was common, and her eyes showed as if she had been
weeping, yet her step was as light and elastic as a young
fawn's, and a bright smile dimpled her cheek, as she addressed
her sister.

“Dear Marian, why so early? And why did you not call
me to share your morning walk? What ails you, dearest? tell
me. For I have seen you, from my window, walking here
up and down so sorrowful and sad —”

“Oh, can you ask me — can you ask me, Annabel?” exclaimed
the lovely girl, in a wild, earnest burst of passion —
“can you not see that my heart is breaking?” and with the
words she flung her arms about her sister's neck, and burying
her face in her bosom fell into an agony of tears.

Annabel clasped Marian to her heart, and held her there for
many moments, kissing away the big drops from her cheeks,
and soothing her with many a kind and soft caress, before she
replied to her incoherent and wild words — but when her violent
sobbing had subsided —

“Dearest,” she said, “I do not understand at all, nor can I
even guess, what had so grievously afflicted you; but, if you
fancy that we shall be parted, that our lives will hereafter be
divided, and weep for that fond fancy, it is but a false apprehension
that distresses you. I go not hence at all, dear sister,

until these fearful wars be over; and, then, I go not till the
course of time shall place De Vaux in his good father's station,
which, I pray Heaven, shall not fall out for years. And
when I do go — when I do go away from this dear happy spot,
you can not, no, you did not dream, my sister, that you should
not go with me. Oh, if you did dream that, it would be very
hard for me to pardon you.

“Oh, no — no! no! dear Annabel,” replied the other, not
lifting up her eyes from the fond bosom on which she hung so
heavily, and speaking in a thick husky voice, “it is not that at
all; but I am so unhappy — so miserable — so despairing!
Oh, would to God — oh, would to God! that I had never gone
hence — or that Ernest De Vaux, at least, had not come hither!”

“Nay! now, I must know what you mean,” Annabel answered
mildly, but at the same time very firmly; “I must, indeed,
dear Marian; for either such words have a meaning, in
which case it is absolutely right that I, your sister and his affianced
wife, should know it; or if they have not any, are cruel
equally and foolish. So tell me — tell me, dear one, if there be
aught that I should know; and, in all cases, let me share your
sorrow.”

“Oh! do not — do not ask me, Annabel; oh! oh! to think
that we two, who have been so happy, should be wretched now.”

“I know not what you would say, Marian; but your strange
words awake strange thoughts within me! We have, indeed,
been happy! fond, happy, innocent, dear sisters; and I can
see no cause why we should now be otherwise. I, at least, am
still happy, Marian, unless it be to witness your wild sorrow;
and, if I know myself, no earthly sorrow would ever make me
wretched, much less repining, or despairing.”

“Yes, you — yes, you indeed may yet be happy, blessed
with a cheerful home, a noble, gallant husband, and it may be
one day, sweet prattlers at your knee, but, I — oh! God!”

and she again burst into a fierce agony of tears and sobbing.
Her sister, for a time, strove to console her but she soon found
not only that her efforts were in vain, but that, so far as she
could judge, Marian's tears only flowed the faster, her sobs became
more suffocating, the more she would have soothed them.
When she became aware of this, then she withdrew gradually
her arms from her waist, and spoke to her in a calm, melancholy
voice, full at the same time of deep sadness, and firm, decided
resolution.

“Marian,” she said, “I see, and how I am grieved to see it,
no words can possibly express, that you look not to me for sympathy
or consolation — nay, more, that you shrink back from
my caresses, as if they were insincere or hateful to you. Your
words, too, are so wild and whirling, that for my life I can not
guess what is their meaning, or their cause — I only can suspect,
or I should rather say, can only dread, that you have suffered
some very grievous wrong, or done some very grievous
sin; and as I must believe the last impossible, my fears still
centre on the first dark apprehension. Could you confide in
me, I might advise, might aid, and could, at least, most certainly
console you! Why you can not or will not trust me, you
can know only. Side by side have we grown up, since we
were little tottering things, guiding our weak steps hand in
hand in mutual dependence, seldom apart, I might say never —
for now, since you have been away, I have thought of you half
the day, and dreamed of you all night — my earliest comrade,
my best friend, my own, my only sister! And now we are
two grown-up maidens, with no one exactly fit to counsel or
console us, except ourselves alone — since it has pleased our
heavenly Father, in his wisdom, for so long to deprive us of
our dear mother's guidance. We are two lone girls, Marian,
and never yet, so far as I know or can recollect, have we had
aught to be ashamed of, or any secret one should not have communicated

to the other. And now there is not one thought in
my mind, one feeling or affection in my heart, which I would
hide from you, my sister. What then can be this heavy sin,
or sorrow, which you are now ashamed, or fearful, to relate to
one, who surely loves you as no one else can do, beneath the
canopy of heaven? Marian, you must reply to me in full, or I
must leave you till better thoughts shall be awakened in your
soul, and till you judge more truly of those who most esteem
you.”

“Too true! it is too true!” Marian replied — “no one has ever
loved me as you have done, sweet Annabel — and now, no one
will love me any more — no one — no one, for ever. But you
are wrong, quite wrong, when you suppose that any one has injured
me, or that as yet I have done any wrong; alas! alas!
that I should even have thought sin! Oh! no; Annabel, dear
Annabel, I will bear all my woes myself, and God will give
me grace to conquer all temptations. Pardon me, sister dear,
pardon me; for it is not that I am ashamed, or that I fear to tell
you; but that to save my own life, I would not plant one thorn
in your calm bosom. No! I will see you happy; and will resist
the evil one, that he shall flee from me; and God will give
me strength, and you will pray for me, and we shall all be
blessed.”

As she spoke thus, the wildness and the strangeness of her
manner passed away, and a calm smile flickered across her features,
and she looked her sister steadfastly in the eye, and cast
her arms about her neck, and kissed her tenderly as she finished
speaking.

But it was plain to see that Annabel was by no means satisfied;
whether it was that she was anxious merely, and uneasy
about the discomposure of her sister's mind; or whether something
of suspicion had disturbed the even tenor of her own, appeared
not. Her color came and went more quickly than was

usual to her, and the glance of her gentle blue eye dwelt with
a doubting and irresolute expression on Marian's face, as she
made answer: —

“Very glad am I that, as you tell me, Marian, you have not
suffered aught, or done aught evil; and I trust that you tell me
truly. Beyond this, I can not — I can not, I confess it — sympathize
with you at all; for in order to sympathize, one most understand,
and that, you know, I do not. What sin you should
have thought of, I can not so much as conceive. You say you
have resisted your temptations hitherto — but, oh, what possible
temptations to aught evil can have beset you in this dear, peaceful
home? I doubt not that you will be strengthened to resist
them further. You tell me, Marian, that you would not plant a
thorn in my calm bosom. It is true that my bosom was calm
yestermorn, and very happy; but now I should speak falsely,
were I to say that it is so. What thorn you would plant in my
heart I know not, by speaking openly — nor how you could
suppose it; but this I do know, Marian, that you have set distrust,
and dark suspicion, and deep sorrow, in my soul this morning:
distrust of yourself, dear Marian — for what can these
half-confidences breed except distrust? suspicion of, I know
not — wish not to know — dare not to fancy, what; deep sorrow
that, already, even from one short separation, a great gulf
is spread out between us. I will not press you now to tell me
any more; but this I must impress upon you, that you have laid
a burden upon me, which, save you only, no earthly being can
remove; which nothing can alleviate except its prompt removal.
Nay! Marian, nay! answer me nothing now — nothing in this
strong heat of passionate emotion! think of it at your calmer
leisure, and, if you can, in duty to yourself and others, give me
your ample confidence, I pray you, Marian, do so. In the meantime
go to your chamber, dearest, and wipe away these traces
of your tears, and re-arrange your hair. Our guests will be assembled

before this, and I have promised Ernest that we will
all ride out, and see his falcons fly, this beautiful morning.”

Marian made no reply at all, but following her sister into the
house, hurried up to her chamber, to re-adjust her garments,
and remove from her face the signs of her late disorder. Meanwhile,
sad and suspicious of she knew not what, and only by a
violent effort concealing her heart-felt anxiety, Annabel joined
her guests in the pleasant summer-parlor. All were assembled
when she entered, and all the preparations for the morning
meal duly arranged upon the hospitable board — the morning
meal, how widely different from that of modern days, how characteristic
of those strong stirring times, when every gentleman
was from his boyhood half a soldier, when every lady was prepared
for deeds of heroism. There were no luxuries, effeminate
and childish, of tea and chocolate, or coffee, although the
latter articles were just beginning to be known; no dry toast or
hot muffins; nor aught else of those things, which we now consider
the indispensables of the first meal: but silver flagons
mantling with mighty ale, and flasks of Bordeaux wine, and
rich canary, crowned the full board, which groaned beneath
sirloins of beef, and hams, heads of the wild boar, and venison
pasties, and many kinds of game and wild fowl.

Ernest de Vaux arose, as Annabel came in, from the seat
which he had occupied by the good vicar's lady, whom he had
been regaling with a thousand anecdotes of the court, and as
many gay descriptions of the last modes, till she had quite made
up her mind that he was absolute perfection, and hastened forward
to offer her his morning salutation. But there was something
of embarrassment in his demeanor, something of coldness
in her manner, which was perceived for a moment by all her
relatives and friends; but it passed away, as it were, in a moment;
for, by an effort, he recovered almost instantly his self-possession,
and began talking with light, careless pleasantry,

that raised a smile upon the lips of all who heard him, and had
the effect immediately of chasing the cloud from the brow of
Annabel. And she, after a few minutes, as if she had done injustice
to her lover in her heart, and was desirous of effacing
its remembrance from both herself and him, gave free rein to
her feelings, and was the same sweet, joyous creature that she
had been, since his arrival had awakened new sensations and
new dreams in her young, guileless heart.

Then, before half an hour had elapsed, more beautiful, perhaps,
than ever, Marian made her appearance. Her rich profusion
of brown curls clustered on her cheeks, and flowed down
her neck from beneath a slashed Spanish hat of velvet, with a
long ostrich feather, and her unrivaled figure was set off to more
than usual advantage, by the long waist and flowing draperies
of her green velvet riding-dress. Her face was, perhaps, somewhat
paler than its ordinary hue, when she first entered, but as
she met the eye of Ernest, brow, cheeks, and neck, were crimsoned
with a burning flush, which passed away, however, instantly,
leaving her not the least embarrassed or confused, but
perfectly collected, and as it seemed, full of a quiet, innocent
mirthfulness.

Nothing could be more perfect than was her manner, during
the long, protracted meal, toward her sister's lover. She
seemed to feel toward him, already, as if he were a tried friend
and brother. Her air was perfectly familiar, as she addressed
him, yet free from the least touch of forwardness, the slightest
levity or coquettishness. She met his admiring gaze — for he
did, at times, gaze on her with visible admiration, yet admiration
of so quiet and dispassionate a kind, as a good brother
might bestow upon a sister's beauty — with calm unconsciousness,
or with a girlish mirth, that defied misconstruction.

And Annabel looked on — alas for Annabel! — and felt her
doubts and suspicions vanishing away every moment. The

vague distrust that had crept into her heart, melted away like
mist wreaths from before the sunbeam. She only wondered
now, what the anxiety, what the distrust could possibly have
been, which, for a moment, had half maddened her.

Then she began to marvel, what could the sorrow be which,
scarce an hour before, had weighed so heavily on Marian; and
which had in that brief space so utterly departed. “It must
be,” she thought, as she gazed on her pure, speaking features,
and the clear sparkle of her bright blue eye, “that she too loves,
loves possibly in vain; that she has lost her young heart during
her absence from her home; and has now overmastered her
despair, her soul-consuming anguish, to sympathize in her sister's
happiness.” And then she fancied how she would win
from her that secret sorrow, and soothe it till she should forget
the faithless one, and tend her with a mother's fond anxiety.
Alas! alas, for Annabel!

7. CHAPTER VII.

The morning meal was ended; the sun already high in the
clear heavens, and the thin mist wreaths were dispersing from
the broad valley, and the bright river; and now a merry cavalcade
swept round the lawn from the stables — a dozen foresters
and grooms, well mounted, with led horses, two of the latter
decked with velvet side-saddles, which were then used by
ladies; and seven or eight serving-men, on foot, with hounds
and spaniels in their leashes; and among them, conspicuous
above the rest, the falconer, with his attendants, one bearing a
large frame whereon were cast — such was the technical jargon
used in the mystery of trainers — eight or ten long-winged falcons,

goshawks, and gerfalcons, and peregrines, with all their
gay paraphernalia of hoods, and bells, and jesses.

A little while afterward the fair girls came out, Annabel now
attired like her sister in the velvet riding-robe, and the slashed,
graceful hat, and were assisted to their saddles by the young
lover. Then he, too, bounded to his noble charger's back, and
the others of the company in their turn mounted, and the whole
party rode off, merrily, to the green meadows by the fair river's
side.

Away! away! the spaniels are uncoupled, and questing far
and wide among the long green flags, and water briony, and
mallows, that fringe the banks of many a creek and inlet of the
river — over the russet stubbles — up the thick alder coppices,
that fringe the steep ravines.

Away! away! the smooth soft turf, the slight and brushy
hedges, invite the free and easy gallop, invite the fearless leap!
Away! with hawk unhooded on the wrist and ready — with
graceful seat, light hand, and bounding heart! See how the
busy spaniels snuff the hot scent, and ply their feathery tails
among the dry fern on the bank of that old sunny ditch; there
has the game been lately — hold hard, bold cavaliers — hold hard,
my gentle ladies! — hurry not now the dogs. Hush! hark! the
black King Charles is whimpering already: that beautiful long-eared
and silky water-spaniel joins in the subdued chorus — how
they thread in and out the withering fern-stalks, how they rush
through the crackling brambles! Yaff! yaff! — now they give
tongue aloud — yaff! yaff! yaff! yaff! — and whir-r-r upsprings
the well-grown covey — now give your hearts to the loud whoop!
— now fling your hawks aloft! — now gather well your bridles
in your hands, now spur your gallant horses — on! on! sweep
over the low fence, skim the green meadow, dash at the rapid
brook — ladies and cavaliers pell-mell — all riding for themselves
and careless of the rest, forgetful of all fear, all thought,

in the fierce, fast career, as with eyes all turned heavenward to
mark the soaring contest of the birds, trusting their good steeds
only, to bear them swift and safely, they drive in giddy routes
down the broad valley.

And now the flight is over, each gallant hawk has struck his
cowering quarry; the lures are shaken in the air, the falconer's
whoop and whistle recall the hovering falcon, and on they go
at slower pace to beat for fresh game — and lo! flip-flap, there
rises the first woodcock of the season.

“Ho! mark him — mark him down, good forester — we must
not miss that fellow — the very prince of game — the king he
would be, save that gray heronshaw of right has old claim to
the throne of falconrie!”

“Lo! there, my masters, he is down — down in that gulley's
bank, where the broom and the brachens feather the sunny
slope, and the long, rank grasses seem almost to choke its
mossy runnel.”

“Quick! quick! unhood the lanner — the young and speckled-breasted
lanner! — cast off the old gray-headed gerfalcon —
soh, Diamond, my brave bird! mark his quick, glancing eye,
and his proud crest, soh! cast him off, and he will wheel around
our heads, nor leave us till we flush the woodcock. No! no!
hold the young lanner hard, let him not fly, he is too mettlesome
and proud of wing to trust to — and couple all the dogs
up, except the stanch red setter.”

“Now we will steal on him up wind, and give him every
chance.”

“Best cross the gully here, fair dames, for it is something
deep and boggy, and if ye were to brave it, in the fury of the
gallop, you might be mired for your pains.”

“That bird will show you sport, be sure of it, for lo! the field
beyond is thickly set with stunted thorns, and tufts of alderbushes;
if your hawks be not keen of sight, and quick of wings

too, be sure that he will dodge them; and if he reach you hill-side
only, all covered as it is with evergreens, dense holly
brakes, and thick oak sapplings, he is as safe there in that covert,
as though he were a thousand leagues away in some deep
glen of the wild Atlas mountains.”

“Lo! there he goes, the gray hawk after him — by heaven!
in fair speed he outstrips the gerfalcon, he does not condescend
to dodge or double, but flies wild and high toward the purple
moorland, and there we can not follow him.”

“Ride, De Vaux, gallop for your life — cut in, cut in between
the bird and the near ridge — soh! bravely done, black charger
— now cast the lanner loose! so! that will turn him.”

“See! he has turned; and now he must work for it. The
angle he has made has brought old Diamond up against his
weather wing; now! he will strike — now! now!”

“But lo! the wary bird has dodged, and the hawk who had
soared, and was in the act of pouncing, checked his fleet pinion
and turned after him — how swift he flies dead in the wind's
eye — and the wind is rising; he can not face it now — tack
and tack, how he twists — how cleverly he beats to windward;
but now the odds are terribly against him, the cunning falcons
have divided, and are now flying sharply to cut him off, one at
each termination of his tacks — the lanner has outstripped him.

“Whoop! Robin, whoop! — soh! call him up the wind —
up the wind, falconer, or he will miss his stroke. There!
there he towers — up! up! in airy circles — he poises his
broad wing — he swoops — alack, poor woodcock! but no! he
has — by Pan, the god of hunters! — he has missed his cast —
no swallow ever winged it swifter than the wild bird of passage:
not now does he fly high among the clouds, but skims
the very surface of the lawn, twisting round every tree and baffling
the keen falcons.”

Now he is scarce ten paces from his covert; the old bird,

Diamond, flying like lightning, struggles in vain to weather
him — in vain — the game dashes behind the boll of a tall upright
oak, darts down among the hollies, and is lost. Well
flown, brave quarry — well flown, noble — ha! the hawk, the
brave old hawk, bent only on retrieving his lost flight, his eye
set too steadily on the bird which he so fiercely struggled to
outfly, has dashed with the full impetus of his arrowy flight
against the gnarled stem of the oak. He rebounds from it like
a ball from the iron target: never so much as once flaps his
fleet pinions; tears not the ground with beak or single. Diamond,
brave Diamond is dead — and pitying eyes look down
on him; and gentle tears are shed; and the soft hands that
were wont to fondle his high crest and smooth his ruffled wings,
compose his shattered pinions, and sleek his blood-stained
plumage. Alas, brave Diamond! — but fate — it is the fate of
war!

Another flight — another glowing gallop to make the blood
dance blithely in our veins — to drive dull care from our hearts!

But no, the sylvan meal is spread: down by that leafy nook,
under the still green canopy of that gigantic oak, where the
pure spring wells out so clear and limpid, from the bright yellow
gravel under its gnarled and tortuous roots — there is the
snow-white linen spread on the mossy green sword; there the
cold pasty and the larded capon tempt the keen appetite of the
jolly sportsman; there, plunged in the glassy waters, the tall
flasks of champagne are cooling! Who knows not the delicious
zest with which we banquet on the green sward; the
merry, joyous ease which, all restraint and ceremonial banished,
renders the sylvan meal, in the cool shadow by the rippling
brook, so indescribably delightful? And all who were
collected there were for a moment happy! — and many, in sad
after-days, remembered that gay feast, and dwelt upon the
young hopes, which were so flattering then, hopes which so

soon decayed — and lingered on the contemplation of that soon
perished bliss, as if the great Italian had erred, when he declared
so wisely that to the sons of man —
The bright wine sparkled in the goblet, but brighter flashed the
azure eyes of Marian, for her whole face was radiant with wild
starry beauty. Was it the thrilling rapture of the gallop, that
sent her blood boiling with strange excitement “through every
petty artery of her body” — was it the spirit-stirring chase
alone, or did the rich blood of the Gallic grape, sparingly tasted
though it was, lend something of unnatural power? hark to the
silvery tones of that sweet ringing laugh — and now how deep
a blush mantles her brow, her neck, her bosom, when in receiving
her glass from the hand of Ernest, their fingers mingled
for a moment.

But Ernest is unmoved, and calm, and seemingly unconscious
— and Annabel, fond Annabel, rejoices to mark her sister's
spirits so happily, so fully, as it seems, recovered from
that over-mastering sorrow. She saw not the hot blush, she
noted not its cause — and yet, can it be — can it be that casual
pressure was the cause? — can it be love? — love for a sister's
bridegroom, that kindles so the eye — that flushes so the cheek
— that thrills so the life-blood of lovely Marian! Away!
away with contemplation.

Ernest reflects not, for his brow is smooth and all unruffled
by a thought, his lips are smiling, his pulse calm and temperate
— and Marian pauses not — and Annabel suspects not — Hush!
they are singing. Lo! how the sweet and flute-like tones of
the fair girls are blended with the rich and deep contralto of
De Vaux. Lo! they are singing — singing the wood-notes
wild of the great master of the soul —

Alas for trusting Annabel! — soon shall she wake from her
fond dream, soon wake to wo, to anguish. Again they mount
their steeds — again they sweep the meadows, down to the very
brink of the broad, deep, transparent Wharfe — and now the
heronshaw is sprung. He flaps his dark grey vans, the hermit-bird
of the waters, and slowly soars away, till the falconer's
shrill whoop, and the sharp whistling flutter of the fleet pinions
in his rear, arouse him to his danger. Up! up! he soars —
up! up! scaling the very sky in small but swift gyrations —
while side by side the well-matched falcons wheel circling
around him still, and still out-topping him, till all the three are
lost in the dull, fleecy clouds — the clouds! — no one had seen
— no one has even dreamed, engrossed in the wild fervor of
the sport, that all the sky was overclouded; and the thick
blackness of the thunderstorm, driving up wind, and settling
down in terrible proximity to the earth, was upon them unseen
and unexpected.

Away! away! what heed they the dark storm-clouds — the
increasing flash! — these bold equestrians! Heavens! what a
flash — how keen! how close! how livid! the whole horizon
shone out for a moment's space one broad blue glare of fearful
living light — and simultaneously the thunder burst above them
— a crash as of ten thousand pieces of earth's heaviest ordnance,
shot off in one wild clatter. The horses of the party
were all careering at their speed, their maddest speed, across
a broad, green pasture, bordered on the right hand by the wide
channel of the Wharfe and on the left by an impracticable fence
of tall old thorns, with a deep ditch on either side, and a stout
timber railing. The two fair sisters were in front, leading the
joyous cavalcade, with their eyes in the clouds, their hearts

full of the fire of the chase, when that broad dazzling glare
burst full in their faces.

Terrified by the livid flash and the appalling crash of the
reverberated thunder, the horses of the sisters bolted diverse —
Annabel's toward the broad, rapid Wharfe, between which and
the meadow through which they had been so joyously careering,
there was no fence or barrier at the spot where they were
then riding — Marian's toward the dangerous oxfence, which
has been mentioned! The charger of De Vaux, who rode
next behind them, started indeed, and whirled about, but was
almost immediately controlled by the strong arm and skilful
horsemanship of his bold rider; but of the grooms who followed,
several were instantly dismounted, and there were only three
or four who, mastering their terrified and fractious beasts, galloped
off to the aid of their young mistresses. They were both
good equestrians, and ordinarily fearless, but in such peril what
woman could preserve her wonted intrepidity unshaken — the
sky as black as night, with ever and anon a sharp clear stream
of the electric fluid dividing the dark storm-clouds, and the continuous
thunder rolling and crashing overhead — their horses
mad with terror, and endowed by that very madness with tenfold
speed and strength! — Annabel, whose clear head, and
calm, though resolute temper, gave her no small advantage over
her volatile, impetuous sister, sat, it is true, as firmly in her saddle,
as though she had been practising her menage in the riding-school
— and held her fiery jennet with a firm, steady hand;
but naturally her strength was insufficient to control its fierce
and headlong speed; so that she saw upon the instant, that she
must be carried into the whirling waters of the swift river —
for a moment she thought of casting herself to the ground, but
it scarcely required one moment of reflection to show her that
such a course could lead but to destruction. So on she drove,
erect and steady in her seat, guiding her horse well, and keeping

its head straight to the river bank, and hoping every instant
to hear the tramp of De Vaux's charger overtaking her, and
bringing succor — alas! for Annabel! — the first sound that distinctly
met her ears was a wild piercing shriek — “Ernest —
great God! my Ernest — help me! — save me!” It was the
voice of Marian, the voice of her own cherished sister, calling
on her betrothed — and he? Even in that dread peril, when
life was on a cast, her woman heart prevailed above her woman
fear, she turned, and saw the steed of Marian rushing with the
bit between his teeth toward the dangerous fence, which lay,
however, far more distant than the river to which her own
horse was in terrible proximity! and he, her promised husband,
the lord of her soul, he for whom she would have perished —
oh! how willingly! — perished with but the one regret of that
reparation — he had overlooked entirely, or heeded not at least,
her peril to whom his faith was sworn; and even before that
wild appealing cry, had started in pursuit — and was, as she
looked round, in the act of whirling Marian from her saddle
with one hand, while with the other he controlled his own
strong war-horse.

When she first heard that cry, her spirit sank within her —
but when she saw herself deserted, when the drear consciousness
that she was not beloved, broke on her, it seemed as if an
icebolt had pierced her heart of hearts! her eyes grew dim!
there was a sound of rushing waters in her ear!—not the sound
of the rushing river, although her horse was straining now up
the last ascent that banked it!—her pulse stood still! Had Annabel
then died, the bitterness of death was over. Before, however,
she had so much as wavered in her saddle, much less lost
rein or stirrup, a wild plunge, and the shock which ran through
every nerve, as her horse leaped into the brimful river, awoke
her for the moment to her present situation: unconsciously she
had retained her seat — her horse was swimming boldly — a

loud plunge sounded from behind! another, and another! and
the next instant her steed's head was seized by the stalwart
arm of a young falconer, and turned toward the shore she had
just quitted; her brain reeled round, and she again was senseless
— thus was she borne to land, without the aid or intervention
of him, who should have been the first to venture all, to
lose all, for her safety. Alas! alas! for Annabel!

8. CHAPTER VIII.

When next she opened her eyes, she lay on her own bed,
in her own well-known chamber, and the old nurse and the
good vicar's wife were watching over her. As her lids rose,
and she looked about her, all her intelligence returned upon the
moment; and she was perfectly aware of all that had already
passed, of all that she had still to undergo. “Well,” she replied,
to the eager and repeated inquiries after the state of her
bodily and mental sensations, which were poured out from the
lips of her assiduous watchers — “oh! I feel quite well, I do
assure you — I was not hurt at all — not in the least — only I
was so foolish as to faint from terror. But Marian, how is
Marian?”

“Not injured in the least — but very anxious about you, sweet
Annabel,” replied Mistress Somers, “so much so, that I was
obliged to force her from the chamber, so terrible was her grief
— so violent her terror and excitement. Lord de Vaux snatched
her from her horse, and saved her before he even saw your
danger; he, too, is in a fearful state of mind; he has been at
the door twenty times, I believe, within the hour; hark, that is
his foot now, will you see him, dearest?”

A quick and chilly shudder ran through the whole frame of

the lovely girl, and a faint hue glowed once again in her pale
cheek; but mastering her feelings, she made answer in her
own notes of sweet, calm music.

“Not yet, dear Mistress Somers, not yet; but tell him, I beseech
you, that I am better — well, indeed! and will receive his
visit by-and-by; and, in the meantime, my good friend, I must
see Marian — must see her directly, and alone. No! no! you
must not hinder me of my desire, you know,” she went on,
with a faint and very melancholy smile, “you know of old, I
am a wilful, stubborn girl when I make up my mind, and it is
quite made up now, my good friend! so, I pray you let me see
her; I am quite strong, I do assure you; so do, I beseech you,
go and console my Lord de Vaux, and let nurse bring me Marian
hither.”

So firmly did she speak, and so resolved was the expression
of her soft gentle features, that they no longer hesitated to comply
with her request; and both retired with soft steps from the
chamber.

Then Annabel half uprose from the pillows, which had
propped her, and clasped her hands in attitude of prayer, and
turned her beautiful eyes upward — her lips moved visibly, not
in irregular impulsive starts, but with a smooth and ordered motion,
as she prayed fervently, indeed, but tranquilly, for strength
to do, and patience to endure, and grace to do and to endure
alike with Christian love and Christian fortitude.

While she was thus engaged, a quick uncertain footstep,
now light and almost tripping, now heavy and half faltering,
approached the threshold; a gentle hand raised the latch once,
and again let it fall, as if the comer was fluctuating between the
wish to enter, and some vague apprehension which for the moment
conquered the desire.

“Is it you, Marian?” asked the lovely sufferer; “oh, come in,
come in, sister!” and she did come in, that bright lovely sufferer,

her naturally high complexion almost unnaturally brilliant
now, from the intensity of her hot blushes: her eyes were
downcast, and she could not so much as look up into the sad
sweet face of Annabel. Her whole frame trembled visibly, as
she approached the bed, and her foot faltered very much; yet
she drew near, and sitting down beside the pillow, took Annabel's
hand tenderly between her own, and raised it to her warm
lips, and kissed it eagerly and often.

Never, for a moment's space, did the eyes of Annabel swerve
from her sister's features, from the moment she entered the
door until she sat down by her side; but rested on them, as if
through them they would peruse the secret soul with a soft,
gentle scrutiny, that savored not at all of sternness or reproach.
At last, as if she was fully satisfied, she dropped her eyelids,
and for a little space, kept them close shut; while again her
lips moved silently, and then pressing her sister's hand fondly,
she said in a quiet soothing voice, as if she were alluding to an
admitted fact, rather than asking a question —

“So you have met him before, Marian?”

A violent convulsion shook every limb of her whom she addressed,
and the blood rushed in torrents to her brow; she
bowed her head upon her sister's hand, and burst into a paroxysm
of hysterical tears and sobbing, but answered not a word.

“Nay! nay! dear sister,” exclaimed Annabel, bending down
over her, and kissing her neck, which, like her brow and
cheeks, was absolutely crimson, “Nay! nay! sweet Marian,
weep not thus, I beseech you, there is no wrong done — none
at all — there was no wrong in your seeing him, when you did
so — it was at York, I must believe — nor in your loving him
either, when you did so; for I had not then seen him, and of
course could not love him. But it was not right, sweetest Marian,
to let me be in ignorance of all this; only think, dearest,
only think what would have been my agony, when I had come

to know, after I was a wife, that in myself becoming happy, I
had brought misery on my second self, my own sweet sister!
nay, do not answer me yet, Marian; for I can understand it all
— almost all, that is — and I quite appreciate your motives, I
am sure that you did not know that he loved you, for he does
love you, Marian! — but fancied that he loved me only, and so
resolved to control yourself, and crush down your young affections,
and sacrifice yourself for me; thank God! oh! thank
God, that your strength was not equal to the task, for had it
been so, we had been wretched, oh! most wretched! But you
must tell me all about it; for there is much I can not comprehend
— when did you see him first, and where? Why did he
never so much as hint to me, that he had known you? Why,
when I wrote you word that he was here, and afterward, that I
liked, loved, was about to marry him — why did you never write
back that you knew him? And why, above all, when you
came and found him here — here in your mother's house, why
did you meet him as a stranger? I know it will be painful to
you, dear one; but you must bear the pain; for it is necessary
now, that there shall be no more mistakes. Be sure of one
thing, dearest Marian, that I will never wed him; oh! not for
worlds! I could not sleep one night, not one hour, in the
thought that my bliss was your bane; but if he loves you as he
ought, and as you love him, sister, for I can read your soul, he
shall be yours at once; and I shall be more happy so — more
happy tenfold, than pillowing my head upon a heart which
beats for another — but he must explain all this, for I much fear
me, he has dealt very basely by us both — I fear me much he
is a bold, base man!”

“No! no!” cried Marian, eagerly raising her clear eyes to
her sister's, full of ingenuous truth and zealous fire — “No!
no! he is all good, and true, and noble! I, it is I only, who
have for once been false and wicked; not altogether wicked,

Annabel, perhaps more foolish than to blame, at least in my intentions;
but you shall hear all; you shall hear all, Annabel,
and then judge for yourself,” and then, still looking her sister
quite steadily and truthfully in the face, she told her how at a
ball in York, she had met the young nobleman, who had seemed
pleased with her; had danced with her many times, and visited
her, but never once named love, nor led her in the least to
fancy he esteemed her, beyond a chance acquaintance; “but I
loved him, oh! how I loved him, Annabel; almost from the first
time I saw him, and I feared ever — ever and only — that by
my bold, frank rashness, he might discover his power, and believe
me forward and unmaidenly; weeks passed, and our intimacy
ripened, and I became each hour more fondly, more devotedly,
more madly — for it was madness all! — enamored of
him.

“He met me ever as a friend, no more! The time came,
when he was to leave York, and as he took leave of me he
told me that he had just received despatches from his father,
directing him to visit mine; and I, shocked by the coolness of
his parting tone, and seeing indeed he had no love for me,
scarcely noting what he said, told him not that I had no father,
but I did tell him that I had one sweet sister, and suddenly extorted
from him, unawares, a promise that he would never tell
you he had known me. My manner, I am sure, was strange
and wild; and I have no doubt my words were so likewise, for
his demeanor altered on the instant. His air, which had been
that of quiet friendship, became cool, chilling, and almost disdainful,
and within a few minutes he took his leave, and we
never met again till yester even.

“You will, I doubt not, ask me wherefore I did all this! I
was mad — mad with love and disappointment. And the very
instant he said that he was coming hither, I knew as certainly
that he would love you and you him, Annabel, as though it had

been palpably revealed to me. I could not write of him to you
— I could not, Annabel, and when your letters came, and we
learned that he was here, I confessed all this to our aunt; and
though she blamed me much, for wild and thoughtless folly, she
thought it best to keep the matter secret. This is the whole
truth, Annabel — the whole truth! I fancied that the absence
— the knowledge that I should see him next my sister's husband
— the stern resolve with which I bound my soul — had made
me strong enough to bear his presence: I tried it, and I found
myself, how weak — this is all, Annabel; can you forgive me,
sister?”

“Sweet, innocent Marian,” exclaimed the elder sister through
her tears, for she had wept constantly through the whole sad
narration, “there is not anything for me to forgive — you have
wronged yourself only, my sister! But yet — but yet! — I cannot
understand it — he must have seen, no man could fail to see
that one, so frank and artless as you are, Marian, was in love
with him. He must, if not before, have known it certainly,
when you extorted from him, as you call it, that strange promise.
Besides, he loves you, Marian; he loves you; then
wherefore, in God's name! did he woo me — for woo he did,
and fervently, and long, before he won me to confession? oh!
he is base! base, base, and bad at heart, my sister! — answer
me nothing, dear one, for I will prove him very shortly — send
Margaret hither to array me. I will go down and speak with
him forthwith. If he be honest, Marian, he is yours — and
think not that I sacrifice myself, when I say this, for all the
love I ever felt for him has vanished utterly away — if he is
honest, he is yours. But be not over-confident, dear child, for
I believe he is not; and if not, why then, sweet Marian, can
we not comfort one another, and live together as we used, dear,
innocent, united, happy sisters? Do not reply now, Marian,
your heart is too full; haste and do as I tell you; before supper-time

to-night all shall be ended — whether for good or for evil,
He only knows, to whom the secrets of the heart are visible,
even as the features of the face. Farewell, be of good cheer,
and yet not over-cheerful.”

9. CHAPTER IX.

Within an hour after that most momentous conversation,
Annabel sat beside the window, in that pleasant summer-parlor,
looking out on the fair prospect of mead and dale and river,
with its back-ground — of purple mountains the very window
from which she had first looked upon De Vaux!

Perhaps a secret instinct had taught her to select that spot,
now that she was about to renounce him for ever; but if it were
so, it was one of those indefinable impulsive instincts of which
we are unconscious, even while they prompt our actions.

De Vaux was summoned to her presence, and Annabel
awaited him — arbiter of her own and her sister's destinies!

“Ernest,” she said, as he entered, cutting across his eager
and impetuous inquiries, “Ernest de Vaux, I have learned to-day
a secret” — she spoke with perfect ease, and without a
symptom of irritation, or anxiety, or sorrow, either in her voice
or manner; nor was she cold, or dignified, or haughty. Her
demeanor was not, indeed, that of a fond maid toward her accepted
suitor; nor had it the flutter which marks the consciousness
of unacknowledged love; a sister's to a dear brother's
would have resembled it more nearly than, perhaps, anything
to which it could be compared, yet was not this altogether similar.
He looked up in her face with a smile, and asked her at
once: —

“What secret, dearest Annabel?”

“A secret, Ernest,” she replied, “which I can not but fancy
you must have learned before, but which you certainly have
learned, as well as I, to-day. My sister loves you, Ernest.”

The young man's face was crimson on the instant, and he
would have made some reply, but his voice failed him, and,
after a moment of confused stuttering, he stood before her in
embarrassed silence; but she went on at once, not noticing apparently,
his consternation.

“If you did know this, as I fear must be the case, long, long
ago! most basely have you acted, and most cruelly to both of
us; for never! never! even if it had been a rash, unsought, and
unjustifiable passion on her part, would I have wedded, knowingly,
the man who held my sister's heart-strings!”

“It was,” he answered, instantly, “it was a rash, unsought,
and unjustifiable passion on her part, believe me, oh! believe
me, Annabel! that is — that is,” he continued, reddening again
at feeling himself self-convicted, “that is, if she felt any passion.”

“Then you did know it — then you did know it,” she interrupted
him, without paying any regard to his attempt at self-correction,
“then you did know it from the very first — oh!
man, man! oh! false heart of man — oh! false tongue that can
speak thus of the lady whom he loves! yes, loves!” she added,
in a clear, high voice, as thrilling as the alarm-blast of a silver
trumpet; “yes, loves, Ernest de Vaux, with his whole heart
and spirit! Never think to deny it! Did I not see you, when
you rushed to save her from lesser peril, when you left me, as
you must have thought, to perish? Did I not see love written
as clearly as words in a book, on every feature of your face,
even as I heard love crying out aloud in every accent of her
voice?”

“What! jealous, Annabel? the calm and self-controlling Annabel,
can she be jealous, of her own sister, too?”

“Not jealous, sir,” she answered, now most contemptuously,
“not jealous, in the least, I do assure you! For though, most
surely, love can exist without one touch of jealousy, as surely
can not jealousy exist where there is neither love, nor admiration,
nor esteem, nor so much as respect existing.”

“How! do I hear you aright?” he asked somewhat sharply,
“do I understand you aright? What have become, then, of
your vows and protestations, your protestations of yester-even?”

“You do hear me, you do understand me,” she replied, “entirely
right, entirely! In my heart — for I have searched it
very deeply — in my heart there is not now one feeling of love,
or admiration, or esteem, much less of respect for you; alas!
that I should say so; alas! for me and you; alas! for one, more
to be pitied twentyfold than the other!”

“Annabel Hawkwood, you have never loved me.”

“Ernest de Vaux, you never have known, never will know, because
you are incapable of knowing the depth, the singleness, the
honesty, of a true woman's love! So deeply did I love you,
that I have come down hither, seeing that long before you knew
me, you had won Marian's heart — seeing that you loved her, as
she loves you, most ardently, and hoping that you had not discovered
her affection, nor suspected your own feelings until
to-day — I came down hither, I say, with that knowledge, in that
hope. And had I found that you had erred no further than in
trivial fickleness, she loving you all the while beyond all things
on earth, I purposed to resign your hand to her, thus making
both of you happy, and trusting for my own consolation to consciousness
of right, and to the love of Him who, all praise be
to him therefor, has so constituted the spirit of Annabel Hawkwood,
that when she can not honor, she can not afterward for
ever feel either love or friendship. You are weighed, Ernest
de Vaux, weighed in the balance and found wanting! I leave
you now, sir, to prepare my sister to bear the blow your baseness

has inflicted. Our marriage is broken off at once, now
and for ever! Lay all the blame on me — on me! if it so
please you; but not one word against my own or my sister's
honor! My aunt I shall inform instantly, that, for sufficient
reasons, our promised union will not take place at all; the reasons
I shall lock up in my own bosom. You may remain here,
you must do so, this one night; to-morrow morning we will bid
you adieu for ever!”

“Be it so,” he replied. “Be it so, lady; the fickleness I
can forgive, but not the scorn! I will go now, and order that
the regiment march hence forthwith. What more recruits
there be, can follow at their leisure, and I will overtake the
troops before noon, on the march, to-morrow;” and with the words
he left the room, apparently as unconcerned as if he had not left
a breaking heart behind him, and as if all the agonies of hell
had not been burning within his own.

And was it true that Annabel no longer loved him? True!
oh, believe it not! where woman once has fixed her soul's affections,
there they will dwell for ever; principle may compel
her to suppress them; prudence may force her to conceal
them; the fiery sense of instantaneous wrong may seem to
quench them for a moment; the bitterness of jealousy may turn
them into gall; but, like that Turkish perfume, where love has
once existed, it must exist for ever, so long as one fragment
of the earthly vessel which contained it survives the wreck of
time and ruin.

She believed that she loved him not; but she knew not herself;
what woman ever did — what man — when the spring-tide
of passion was upon them? And she, too, left the parlor, and
within a few minutes, Marian had heard her fate, and after
many a tear, and many a passionate exclamation, she, too, apparently,
was satisfied of Ernest's worthlessness; oh! misapplied
and heartless term! She satisfied? satisfied by the

knowledge that her heart's idol was an unclean thing, an evil
spirit, a false God! she satisfied? oh! Heaven!

Around the hospitable board once more — once more they
were assembled; but oh! how sadly altered; the fiat had been
distinctly, audibly pronounced; and all assembled there had
heard it, though none, except the sisters and De Vaux, knew
of the cause; none probably, but they, suspected it. Well
was it that there were no young men — no brothers with high
hearts and strong hands to maintain or question? Well was it,
that the only relatives of those much-injured maidens, the only
friends, were superannuated men of peace — the ministers of
pardon, not of vengeance — and weak, old, helpless women!
There had been bloodshed else — and, as it was, among the
serving-men, there were dark brows, and writhing lips, and
hands alert to grasp the hilt at a word spoken; had they but
been of rank one grade higher — had they dared even as they
were — there had been bloodshed! Cold, cold and cheerless
was the conversation; formal and dignified civilities, in place
of gay, familiar mirth; forced smiles for hearty laughter; pale
looks and dim eyes, for the glad blushes of the promised bride
— for the bright sparkles of her eye!

The evening passed, the hour of parting came; and it was
colder yet and sadder. Ernest de Vaux, calm and inscrutable,
and seemingly unmoved, kissed the hands of his lovely hostesses,
and uttered his adieu and thanks for all their kindness, and
hopes for their prosperity and welfare; while the old clergymen
looked on with dark and angry brows, and their helpmates
with difficulty could refrain from loud and passionate invective.
His lip had a curl upon it — a painful curl, half sneer, as he
bowed to the rest, and left the parlor; but none observed that
as he did so, he spoke three or four words, in a low whisper,
so low that it reached Marian's ear alone, of all that stood
around him, yet of such import, that her color came and went

ten times within the minute, and that she shook from head to
foot, and quivered like an aspen.

For two hours longer, the sisters sat together in Annabel's
bedchamber, and wept in one another's arms, and comforted
each other's sorrows, and little dreamed that they should meet
no more for years — perchance for ever.

10. CHAPTER X.

Three hours had elapsed since all the inhabitants of Ingleborough
hall had retired to their own chambers, and one, at
least since Marian had retired from her sister's dressing-room
to bed, but not to sleep. During that weary hour, she had lain
tossing to and fro, feverish with anxiety and expectation, irresolute,
anxious, and heartsick.

The last words which Ernest de Vaux had whispered in her
ear, unheard by any others, contained a fervent entreaty, perhaps
— I should say, rather, a command — that she should meet
him after all the house had gone to rest, in the garden. And
strange it was, that despite all that had passed, despite all her
own good resolutions, all the resistance of her native modesty,
all her conviction — for she was almost convinced that he was
base and bad — she yet lacked firmness to set the tempter at
defiance.

It is a singular fact, but one which we nevertheless encounter
more frequently than would be supposed, that it is women
of the most bold, and free, and fearless characters, who, so long
as their fancies are untouched, appear the wildest and the most
untameable, that are subdued and engrossed the most completely,
when they once become thoroughly enamored, when they
once meet with an overmastering spirit.

And so it was with Marian Hawkwood; high-spirited, and
almost daring, while her heart was free, no sooner had she
fallen desperately in love, as she did, with De Vaux, than she
became, so far as he was concerned, the most thoroughly subjugated
and tamed of beings. Her whole nature, toward him
at least, seemed to have undergone a change. Her very intellect
appeared to have lost much of its brilliancy, of its rapid
and clear perceptions, as soon as he was to be judged.

To us, such things appear very strange, although we see
them happening before our eyes almost daily. To us, they are
as inexplicable as the one half of our motives and our actions
must appear incomprehensible to the other sex. But all these
diversities, all these inexplicable contradictions as they seem,
in the nature and characteristics of our race, have been created,
and unquestionably for wise ends, by Him whose every
deed is all-wise, whose every purpose perfect. And it may
well be that it is these very differences, these very extremities
of thought and action, that render the two sexes so eminently
attractive to one another.

To the mind of a man it naturally would appear impossible,
that after what had passed, Marian should still entertain a belief,
a hope even, that De Vaux could explain honorably his
most dishonorable conduct; dishonorable, if possible, yet more
toward herself than toward Annabel. It would seem that when
he presumed to whisper in her ear that prayer for a clandestine
interview, she would have recognised and spurned him for the
villain that he was. But it was not so; she still hoped, if she
did not believe, and if she made him no answer at the time, it
was that her maiden purity of soul revolted from the idea of
a rendezvous with any man at that untimely hour, and in a place
so sequestered.

At first, indeed, she resolved that she would not meet him,
and even made up her mind to confide his request to Annabel,

as a fresh proof of his atrocious baseness. But gradually
worse thoughts and more fatal wishes began to creep in, and
she suffered the long conversation between herself and Annabel
to come to a termination, without touching on the circumstance
at all. At length she left her sister's chamber, and withdrew
to her own, still without any fixed intention of granting
his request, but certainly without any fixed determination not
to do so.

After she had undressed herself, however, and that she did
so was a proof that up to this time her better principles had the
upper hand, she knelt down by her bedside, buried her face in
her hands, and seemed, at least, to pray. It was, however, but
too evident that her mind was in no state for prayer. She
burst into a fit of violent and convulsive weeping, mixed with
sobs almost hysterical, while strong shudderings ran through
her whole fair frame.

“No!” she said, starting up after a while, and calming herself
by a powerful effort of the will, “no, no, I can not pray —
it is mockery — a shameful mockery to bend my knees and
move my lips in prayer before the throne of God, when no
thought of him remains fixed in my mind; when by no effort
can I concentrate my wandering senses upon his goodness and
mercy; when by no effort can I banish from my soul the recollection,
the wild yearning for the creature usurping thus the
place of the Creator! Oh, my God!” she continued, even more
wildly than before; “my God, what shall I do? what shall I
do? what have I done that I should be thus terribly afflicted?
To bed, to bed!” she added, extinguishing her taper, as she
spoke, “to bed, but not to sleep! never to sleep again in peace
or dreamless. Would to God that this bed were the grave,
the cold unconscious grave!”

And with the words, she laid her head upon the pillow, and
closed her eyelids, saying to herself: “No, no, it were unmaidenly,

I will not think of it — no, no!” But she did think of
it — nay, she could think of nothing else; and ere long she unclosed
her eyes, and looked about her chamber with a wild,
eager glance, as if she were in search of something which she
expected to see there, but saw not. Again she closed them,
and cast herself back impatiently upon the bed, and lay quiet
for a little while; but it was only by a great effort that she
forced herself to do so, and before long, she started up crying,
“I shall go mad — I shall go mad — I hardly know if I am not
mad already. It is all fire here!” and she clasped her small
white hands over her brow, “all raging and consuming fire!
Air! air! I must have air — I am choking, stifling! Can it be
that the room is so suffocatingly hot? or is it in my own heart?”

The comfortable, roomy chamber in which she lay, could not
have been more pleasantly attempered to the weather and the
season, had it been regulated by the thermometer. It was a
large and airy chamber, situated at the corner of the house, so
that its two large latticed casements looked out in different directions,
one over the little garden amphitheatre so often noticed,
the other down the broad valley to the southward. The
moon, which now was nearly full, streamed in at the eastern
window, and would have rendered the room nearly as bright
as day, if it had not been for the leafy head of one of the
huge sycamores that interrupted the soft beams partially; and
swaying backward and forward in the west wind, which was
fitful and uncertain, now blowing in long gusts, now lulling altogether,
cast huge and wavering shadows over the floor and
walls — so that they were at one time all bathed in lustrous
light, and the next moment steeped in misty shadows.

There was something in this wavering effect of light and
shade, that at first caught the eye merely, and attracted the
physical attention, if it is allowed so to speak, and afterward
began to produce an impression on her mind. It seemed to

her as if the vagueness and incertitude of these fleeting shades
were in some sort assimilated to the wild and whirling thoughts
which were chasing one another across the horizon of her own
mind. Then she compared them to the changes and chances
of mortal life, and thence, as we are all so prone to do, when
in trouble and affliction, she began to charge all her own misfortunes,
and many of her own faults, to the account of fortune.

If it had not been for the irresistible destiny which had compelled
Ernest to leave her at York, it could not have been, she
thought, that seeking her out so eagerly as he did on all occasions,
and admiring her personal charms so evidently, Ernest
should not have ended by loving and wooing her instead of her
passionless and gentle sister.

And from this train of thought she fell into another yet more
perilous. How, she now asked herself, had it come to pass
that he had wooed Annabel at all — how, when he loved herself,
should he have sought her sister's love — or how, loving
her sister, should he have given way, so clearly and openly as
he had done to-day, to a passion for herself.

His conduct did seem, in truth, incomprehensible — perhaps
to himself, even, it might have been so — for, I believe that, far
oftener than is generally believed, men, if they were to subject
themselves to strict self-examination, would be at a loss to account
to themselves for the motives whence arise very many of
their actions.

This very strangeness of Ernest de Vaux's demeanor — this
very impossibility of accounting for his conduct on any reasonable
hypothesis, had the worst possible effect for her happiness,
on the mind of Marian. If she was to consider this whole
course of conduct infamous and base, the baseness seemed too
gratuitous, the infamy too void of motive, to be credited. And
hence she was led to fancy that there must be some unseen
and secret hand which had given motion to the whole machinery,

and which, could it but be discovered, would probably
afford a ready clue and complete solution to all that now appeared
dark and enigmatical in her lover's words and actions.

For whatever we find glaringly inconsistent, or foolishly miscontrived
in the conduct of men, we are wont, in our blindness
and conceitedness of heart, to consider enigmatical and obscure.
As if, forsooth, men were anything but masses of inconsistencies
the most glaring and self-evident.

Having soon brought herself to the conclusion that, because
she could not understand the conduct of Ernest, there must necessarily
be something in it to be understood, she now went to
work to find out what this something could be. The original
bane of woman, curiosity, was busy in her secret soul, and soon
there came together two sister-friends to aid her in the invidious
onslaught she was seeking on the strongholds of principle
and virtue — fit partners in the foul alliance, vain self-esteem
and jealousy.

First she commenced asking herself how it could have been
that he should have failed to love her, and yet have fallen in
love instantly with Annabel — then she half doubted whether
he had, indeed, ever loved Annabel at all — that he did so no
longer was quite evident — and in the end she convinced herself,
that she had been the object of his love from the beginning,
that by some misapprehension of her manner he had been
led to believe her indifferent to himself, and that in pique he
had devoted himself to her sister.

This train once kindled in her mind, the flame ran rapidly
from point to point, and she was very soon so completely self-deluded,
that she gave herself up to the conviction that she
was herself the only true love of De Vaux, that his conduct had
been natural, and, if very blameable, still honorable, and deserving
some compassion, from the fact that her own charms
had been the cause of all the mischief. Still she was very far

from having made up her mind to meet him, though she had
already admitted to herself that it was cruel to condemn him
without giving him an opportunity of defending himself, and one
step leading to another, she soon began to consider seriously
the possibility of doing that, which but an hour before she could
not have contemplated without terror and disgust.

Ere long it was fear only that dissuaded her from going —
the fear of discovery, and that was but a weak opponent to
strong and passionate love — for she did love Ernest de Vaux
strongly and passionately — particularly when that love was
aided and abetted by the other kindred spirits of evil, which I
have enumerated, and which for ever lie hid in the secret recesses
of the human heart waiting the opportunity to arise and
do battle, when the better principles are weakened by temptations,
and the tone of the mind soured by vexation, and rendered
angry by disappointment.

Then she arose at length, half-timidly still, and half-reluctantly.
Nor did she as yet admit to herself what was her intention
as she dressed herself hastily, and stole, with a beating
heart and noiseless step, to the door of her sister's chamber.
Opening it with a careful hand, she entered, and stole silently
to the bedside. Pale as a lily, calm and tranquil lay sweet
Annabel, buried in deep, and as she at first thought, dreamless
sleep. One fair slight hand was pressed upon her bosom, the
other arm was folded under the head of the lovely sleeper.
The broad light of the moonbeams fell in a flood of pure silvery
radiance over the lovely picture — and surely never lovelier
was devised — of virgin innocence, and purity of meekness.

For many moments the perturbed and anxious Marian stood
by the side of the couch gazing upon the face of that once beloved
sister — alas! that I must say once beloved — for already
had jealousy, and distrust, and envy, come over the heart of the
no less lovely watcher — and she felt, as she stood there, that

she no longer loved that sister, as she used to love, or as she
was still herself beloved. No contrast can be imagined more
striking than that between the sleeper, so still, so tranquil, so
serene — yet so inanimately pale and spiritual in her aspect —
and the flushed cheeks, and flashing eyes, and frame quivering
with wild excitement of the half-trembling, half-guilty girl who
stood beside her. The deep, regular, calm breathing of the
sleeper, the short, quick, panting inspirations of the excited
watcher — the absolute unconsciousness of the one, and the terrible
and over-wrought feelings of the other — the innocence,
the confidence, the trust in God, of Annabel — the agonies, the
wishes, and the doubts of Marian.

And strange as it may seem, the very peacefulness, the very
absence of all semblance of earthly feeling or earthly passion
in her slumbering sister, the infantile repose which brooded
over the candid face, augmented Marian's feelings of nascent
dislike or disaffection. An angry sense of vexation that Annabel
should be able to sleep sound and quiet, even amid her
griefs, while she could neither rest in mind or body. Then she
began to justify herself in her own eyes, by suffering her mind
to dwell on the idea that Annabel could not be wronged by her,
should she consent to wed Ernest, for that her very calmness
and tranquillity must needs betoken the absence of true passion.

While she was wondering thus a slight sound from the garden
under the windows caught her ear, and she started wildly,
her heart bounding as if it would have burst out of her tortured
bosom. A shadow steals not across the moon-lighted landscape
more noiselessly than did Marian Hawkwood glide over the
carpet to the lattice, and gaze down into the quiet shrubbery.
Alas! for Marian — there on the gravel-walk, half hidden by the
shadow of the giant sycamores, stood the graceful and courtly
figure of the tempter. His eyes were directed upward to the
casement at which she was standing — they met hers — and on

the instant, deeply versed in all the hypocrisies of gallantry,
Ernest de Vaux knelt down, and clasped his hands as if he
were in prayer, and she might see his lips tremble in the moon-light.

She turned — she retrod the chamber-floor in silence — she
stood again beside her sister's bed — but this time it was to see
only whether that sister's eyes were sealed in oblivious slumber.
As she paused, she had an opportunity of judging whether
the dreams of that pale sleeper were indeed so blissful — whether
the heart of Annabel was so serene and passionless. The
moonbeams fell full on her face, as I have said, and Marian saw
two heavy tears glide from her deeply-curtained lids, and slide
down her transparent cheeks; and while she gazed upon her
she stirred, and stretched out both her arms, as if to clasp some
one, and murmured in her sleep the name — of Marian.

Had that small, simple thing occurred before the girl looked
out and saw Ernest, all might have yet been well — but it was
all too late — passion was burning in her every vein, and bounding
in her every pulse — it was too late! — she turned and left
the chamber.

Cautiously she stole to the staircase, groping her way in the
glimmering twilight through the long oaken corridor — as she
reached the stairhead she again, paused, listened, and trembled
— did she hesitate? Upon that landing-place there stood two
complete panoplies of steel, worn by some loyal Hawkwood
of old time in the wars of the Roses, and as the eyes of the
excited girl fell upon them, it appeared to her that the spirits
of her dead ancestors were looking out from the bars of their
avantailles reproachfully on their delinquent daughter. Hastily
she darted past them, and flew down the stairs and reached the
vestibule, and there she met another interruption, for a small
favorite greyhound — her favorite — she had reared it from a
puppy when its dam perished — which was sleeping on the

mat, rose up and fawned upon her, and would not be repulsed,
but stood erect on its hinder legs and laid its long paws on her
arm, as she thought afterward, imploringly, and uttered a low
ominous whine as she cast it off.

She unbolted the hall door, opened it, glided out like a guilty
spectre into the glimpses of the moon — and as she did so a
fleecy cloud passed over the pale face of the planet, and a long
wailing cry rose plaintively upon the still night. It was but
the cry of an owl — there were hundreds of them in the woods
around, and she heard them hoot nightly — yet now she shuddered
at the sound as if it were a warning; and was it not so?
The smallest things are instruments in the hands of Him, to
whom all earthly things are small.

11. CHAPTER XI.

Despite the warning sounds, which at the moment smote on
her soul so ominously, Marian went down the steps leading
from the little porch into the garden, although her steps faltered,
and her heart beat violently between fear and expectation,
and the consciousness that she was acting wrongly. Before
she had advanced, however, ten paces, round the corner
of the hall, into the grove of sycamores, wherein the shadows
fell dark and heavy over the gravel-walk which threaded it,
she was joined by Ernest de Vaux.

He appeared, at the moment, to be little less agitated than
she was herself; his countenance, even to the lips, was ashy
pale, and she could see that he trembled, and it was owing,
perhaps, to this very visible embarrassment on his part, that
Marian felt less forcibly the extreme impropriety, if not indelicacy,
of her own conduct.

Had he come to meet her, confident, proud, and evidently

exhilarated by the success of his machinations, it is possible
that her modesty would have been offended; that she would
have discovered the danger she was running, and withdrawn,
ere it was yet too late, for happiness or honor.

But, as it was, when she saw the man she loved, coming to
meet her, wan and agitated, timid, and with the trace of tears
on his pallid cheeks, a sense of pity rose in her bosom, and
lent its aid to the pleadings of that deceptive advocate within
her soul, which needed no assistance in his favor.

Still, as she met him, there was an air of dignity, and self-restraint,
and maidenly reserve about her, that went some little
way at least to screen her from the consequences of her exceeding
indiscretion; and when she addressed him — for it was
she who spoke the first — it was in a voice far cooler, and more
resolute, than the mind which suggested and informed it.

“I trust,” she said, “my Lord de Vaux, that you have good
and sufficient cause for the strange request which you made
me at our last interview; some cause, I mean, sir, that may
justify you, in requiring a lady to meet you thus clandestinely,
and alone, and her in consenting to do so. There has been so
much strange and mysterious, my lord, in your whole conduct
and demeanor, from the first to the last; and that mystery —
if not deceit — has wrought effects so baleful on my sister's
happiness, that I confess I have hoped you may have something
to communicate that may, in some degree, palliate your
own motives, which now seem so evil; and repair the positive
evil which you have done her. It is on this consideration only,
that I have consented to give you a hearing. It is in this
trust only, that I have taken a step, which I fear me is unmaidenly
and wrong in itself — but it is by my motives that my conduct
must be judged; and I know those to be honorable and
correct. Now, my lord, may it please you to speak quickly
that you have got to say; but let me caution you, that I hear

no addresses, nor receive any pleadings, meant for my own ear
— one such word, and I leave you. Speak, my lord!”

“You are considerate, ever, dear young lady,” replied
Ernest de Vaux, in tones of deep respect, not drawing very
near her, nor offering to take her hand, nor tendering any of
those customary familiarities, which, though perfectly natural
at any other time, might, under present circumstances, have
had the effect of alarming her, and checking her freedom of
demeanor.

“You are considerate, ever, dear young lady! and I
am bold to say it, your confidence is not misplaced, nor shall
your trust be deceived!”

“I do not know,” answered Marian, “I do not know, my
lord! It is for you to show that; at present, appearances are
much against you; nor do I see what explanation you can make,
that shall exonerate you. But to the point, my lord, to the
point!”

“None, Miss Hawkwood — none! I have no explanations
that I can make, which shall exonerate —”

“Then why,” she interrupted him, warmly and energetically,
“why have you brought me hither? or to what do you expect
that I shall listen? — not methinks, to a traitor's love-tale.”

“Which shall exonerate me — I would have said,” De Vaux
resumed, as quickly as she left off speaking, “had you permitted
me — from the grossest and most blind folly — hallucination
— madness! — Yes! I believe I have been mad.”

“Madness, my lord,” exclaimed Marian, “is very apt to be
the plea of some people for doing just whatsoever they think
fit — without regard to principle or honor, to the feelings of
their fellow-creatures, or to the good opinion of the world. I
trust it is not so with you; but I, for one, have never seen
aught in your conduct that was incompatible with the most sound
and serious sanity.”

“I hardly know how I may speak to you without offence,
dear Mistress Marian. My object, in requesting you to hear
a few last words from a very wretched, and very penitent man,
arose from a painful yearning to stand pardoned, if not justified,
in the eyes of one being at least, of this family, to whom I owe
so much, and by whom I am now so grievously misapprehended.”

“Then I was right!” answered Marian, joyously, and her
eye sparkled for a moment, and her pale cheek flushed crimson;
“then you have some excuse to offer — well! my lord,
well. It was in hopes of hearing such, that I came hither —
there can be no offence to me in that — I shall be very glad to
hear that one of whom I have thought well, is worthy of such
estimation.”

“But to prove that,” he answered, in a soft, low voice, “I
must enter upon a history; I must speak to you of things that
passed long ago — of things that passed at York!”

“My lord!” and she started back, a brief spark of indignation
gleaming in her bright eyes, “my lord!”

“Nay,” he replied, humbly and sadly, “if you forbid me to
speak, I am silent; but by no means can I exculpate myself,
but by naming these things; and I asseverate to you by the
earth and the heavens, and all that they contain! — I swear to
you, by Him who made them all! that, if you deign to hear
me, I have a perfect and complete defence against all but the
charge of folly. And, as you hope for happiness yourself, here
or hereafter, I do conjure you to hear me!”

“Your promises are very strong, my lord; and your adjuration
such, that I may not refuse to listen to you.”

“I must speak to you of yourself, lady!”

“Of myself?”

“Ay! of yourself — for you, Marian Hawkwood, are the
cause, the sole cause of everything that has appeared inconsistent,
base, or guilty, on my part!”

“I! my lord — I! — I the cause of your inconsistency, your
guilt, your baseness!” she cried, indignantly. “Prove it, prove
it; but I defy you,” she added, more calmly, and with a scornful
intonation of voice: “you know that all this is words —
words — false and empty words! Now, sir, speak out at once,
or I leave you — better it were, perhaps, had I never come at all!”

Better, indeed! Alas! poor Marian, that your own words
should be so terribly prophetic, that your one fault should have
so sealed and stamped your life with the impression of remorse
and sorrow. For Ernest de Vaux had now gained his end, he
had so stimulated and excited her curiosity, and through her
curiosity, her interest, that she was now prepared, nay, eager,
to listen to words, which, a little while before, she would have
shrunk from hearing. And he perceived the advantage he had
gained — for all his seeming agitation and embarrassment were
but consummate acting, and made himself ready to profit by it
to the utmost.

“You can not but remember lady,” he resumed, artfully,
adopting the unconcerned tone of a mere narrator, “the day
when I first saw you at the high-sheriff's ball?”

“I do not know, my lord, what very charming memories I
have to fix the time or place, upon my mind, of an event by no
means striking or delightful; was it at the high-sheriff's ball?
— it might have been, doubtless; for I was there — and if you
say it was, I do not doubt that you are quite right.”

But this affected unconcern, this little stratagem of poor Marian,
availed her nothing with De Vaux; for he saw through it
in a moment. He knew instinctively and instantly, that it was
affected — and more, the affectation convinced him that there
was something that she would conceal; and what that something
was, his consummate knowledge of the female heart informed
him readily. But he replied, as if he was taken in by
her artifice.

“It is fortunate for you,” he said, “that you can forget so
easily — would to God that I had been able to do likewise;
but if you have forgotten the time and the place, I can not believe
that you have as speedily forgotten the deep and evident
impression which your charms made upon me — my eagerness
to gain your acquaintance — my constant and assiduous attentions
— in short, the deep and ardent passion with which you
had filled my very soul, from the first hour of our meeting.”

“Indeed!” she replied, very scornfully and coldly, “you do
far too much honor to my penetration. I never once suspected
anything of the kind; nor do I even now conjecture what motive
can impel you to feign, what, I believe, never had an existence
in reality.”

“You must have been blind, indeed, lady, as blind as I was
myself. And yet you can not deny that my eye dwelt on you;
followed you everywhere — that I danced with you constantly,
with you alone, and that when I danced not with you, I waited
ever nigh you, to catch one glance from your eye, one
murmur from your sweet voice. You can not but have noticed
this!”

“And if I did, my lord — and if I did, ladies of birth and station
do not imagine that every young man, who likes to dance
with them, and talk soft nonsense to them, who perhaps thinks
them pretty enough, or witty enough, to while away a tedious
hour in the country, is in love with them, any more than they
wish gentlemen to flatter themselves, that they have yielded up
their hearts, because they condescend to be amused by lively
conversation, or even flattered by attentions, which they receive
as things of course!”

“And did you so receive — did you so think of my attentions?”

“Upon my word, my lord, I don't remember that I thought
anything at all about them, that I perceived them even! But

your self-justification is taking a strange turn. To what is all
this tending, I beseech you?”

“To this, Marian Hawkwood, that when I saw you daily,
nightly, at York, I loved you with the whole passionate and
violent devotion of a free, honest heart — that I endeavored by
all means in my power, by the most eager and assiduous devotion,
by all those nameless indescribable attentions, which we
are taught to believe that women prize above all things—”

“Women are much obliged to you, my lord, upon my word!”
she interrupted him.

“To let you perceive,” he continued, as if he had not heard
her, “to make you understand how I adored you; and I believed
that I had not been unsuccessful — I believed more, that you
both saw, and appreciated, and returned my love, Marian!”

“Did you, indeedl” she replied, with a bitter expression of
haughtiness and scorn. “Did you, indeed, believe so? Then
you were, in the first place, very unhappily mistaken; and, in
the second place, egregiously misled by your vain self-conceit.”

“I believe not. Mistress Marian, ladies are generally sufficiently
clear-sighted in matters that concern the heart, especially
when men endeavor to make those matters evident to
them. I did so, and you received my attentions with very evident
gratification. I do not now believe that you are in the
least a coquette — though I did think so for a time — besides, I
know that you love me now.”

“Love you!” she replied, with a burst of fiery indignation,
“nay! but I hate, scorn, loathe, detest you!” and she gave way
in a moment, to a paroxysm of violent and hysterical weeping;
staggered back to a garden-chair; and sank into it; and lay
there with her head drooping upon her breast, the big tears
rolling down her cheeks, heavy and fast as summer's rain, and
her heart throbbing and bounding as if it would break from her
bosom.

12. CHAPTER XII.

Ernest de Vaux gazed on her for a moment or two, with a
well-satisfied and scrutinizing eye, and then crept with a noiseless
foot to her side; knelt down on the turf at her feet, before
the paroxysm had, in any wise, abated, and gained possession
of her hand, after a moment of faint and ill-feigned resistance.

“O my God!” she exclaimed, “what does this mean, De
Vaux?”

“It means,” he answered, with a voice admirably modulated
to suit his object, “it means that I adore you, that I have adored
you ever, that, save you, I never loved a woman.”

“How dare you?” she replied, anger again, for a moment,
gaining the ascendency — “How dare you mock me thus — and
your addresses to my sister — what did they mean, my lord?”

“Hear me,” he said; “however it may please you to deny
that you perceived my attentions, that you remember where we
first met, you can not, I think, have forgotten the morning, the
accursed morning, when I came to take leave of you before setting
forth to your father's house. That morning, Marian, I
came with an ingenuous heart upon my lips, a heart to cast before
your feet, had you been willing to receive it. But on that
morning, I know not wherefore, you were a different creature;
petulant, wilful, wild, repulsive; for at this moment, I must
speak the truth — you checked my speech, you jeered and
mocked at me, you spoke strange, whirling words against the
truth, and honesty, and honor of human kind at large, and of
men in particular — you said strange things about your beautiful
and charming sister; till you convinced me quite, though, up
to that time, I had believed that you loved me, that from the

beginning you had merely been coquetting with me — that you
were a vain, heartless girl, eager for admiration only, and careless
of the agonies which your caprice had occasioned.”

“Ernest de Vaux!”

“Marian Hawkwood!”

“You had no right — no cause — no shadow of a reason so
to surmise!”

“Pardon me, lady, your conduct left no possible interpretation
else. Even at this moment, when I know that it was not
what I deemed it, I still am at a loss utterly to conceive your
motives or your meaning. You never hinted to me even that
your father was dead long ago, though I spoke to you of visiting
his house. You called on me to promise that I would
never whisper to your family that I had seen or known you.
What could I think? what do? I went my way conceiving
myself a man scorned, slighted, outraged in the tenderest and
nicest point; I went my way with a heart crushed, and yet embittered
— humiliated, and yet maddened.”

“You had no right, I say it again; you had no right to think
so; you had never spoken to me of love — never so much as
hinted it; ladies do not believe that men love them, because
they are civil at a morning visit — attentive at an evening ball.
Oh! had you spoken to me; had you spoken to me on that fatal
morning, Ernest de Vaux, all might —”

“All might what, Marian, all might what?” he interrupted
her, very eagerly.

“All might have been understood between us,” she replied,
coldly, bridling her impetuosity of speech.

“But, Marian Hawkwood,” he made answer to her, “if ladies
do not believe they are loved till they are told so in plain
words, neither will gentlemen, unless they be consummate
fools, speak those plain words until, at least, they have some
little cause for believing that those words, when spoken, will

be acceptable. Now, on the morning when I sought you, I
fancied that I had such cause — and I did so believe — and I
came to speak those plain words; but by your own changed
tone, and altered manner —”

“True! true!” she replied, at length, in sad and faltering
tones, quite overcome by the intensity of her feelings; for,
strange to say, De Vaux had, perhaps, struck on the only chord
which would have at all responded to his touch; certainly on
that which thrilled the most powerfully in her soul. Had he,
indeed, read her mind, had he heard the thoughts expressed
aloud, which had been nourished secretly within her for so
long a time, he could not more skilfully have ministered to her
vanity, have gratified her curiosity, have appeased her wounded
self-respect, have reawakened her half-dormant passion than
he did now by the course which he adopted. “True! true!”
she murmured, suffering her head to fall upon her bosom in
calm, sad despondency, “it is all true — too true! too true!”

Her dream was then realized, she thought within herself; it
was as she had fancied — hoped! He had loved her from the
beginning, and her only; it was her own fault, and he! he the
idol of her soul, was guiltless — alas! how prompt are we to
deceive curselves, when the deception pampers our desires!

“And why,” he whispered in her ear, tenderly, “why was
it so, Marian?”

“You have no right to ask me, sir; and after all, your defence
is faulty, is vain; nothing worth! If you loved me, even
if I did misuse you, how does that palliate your treason to my
sister? for shame, my lord, for shame! How dare you challenge
me, or question my deeds, when your own crime glares
in the eye of Heaven!”

“You wrong me, Marian, and deceive yourself; I am no
traitor, nor have I ever, wilfully, ever at all, wronged your sister.
There is, at all times, a reaction of the heart after strong

passion, checked and cast back upon itself. Outraged and
wronged by one, it is natural, it is almost a necessary consequence,
that we fly for consolation, for love to another. Pride,
too — wounded and lacerated pride — urges us to win, where
we have lost our all, in the love of woman. And so it was
with me. To my own soul's deepest belief, in my most holy
and most sacred conscience, I believe that I loved Annabel, as
I had never loved even you. The strange similitude, blended
with as strange dissimilitude, between your styles of beauty,
between your tones of thought, between your characters of
mind, yet more enthralled and enchained me. Then I perceived,
as I thought, that Annabel did love me as truly as you
had sported with me falsely — and there, too, was I mistaken!
and then for the sweetest drop, the most powerful ingredient in
the love-philtre, arose the thought that I should be avenged on
you, whom then I hated, as I had loved you once, more than
all womankind united. I was happy, quiet, contented, conscious
of honor — yes! Marian, I was happy! till you returned; and
at the first momentary glance, the scales fell from my eyes, and
I saw that you loved me, the darkness vanished from my heart,
and I found that I loved you yet — as I had loved you before,
madly — devotedly — for ever!”

“My God! my God!” exclaimed the wretched girl, wringing
her hands in the excess of mental anguish, “what have I
done, that I should be so wretched?”

“Why, why should you be miserable?” replied the tempter;
“if it be true, as you say it is, that you did not perceive or suspect
my love — that you have never cared for me — that you
now hate me? Why, Marian, why should you be miserable?”

“Ernest de Vaux,” answered the hapless girl, raising her
pale face, and fixing her large azure eyes full on his features,
“why trouble you me any further? Between you and me
there is a great gulf fixed. If you did love me, as you say, and

were prevented by any girlish fears or girlish folly on my part,
from speaking your love honestly — if you did as you aver, fall
innocently into love with Annabel, and awake from that fancied
love again at sight from me — what does it avail me now to
hear this? Why do you tell it to me? unless it be to make
me utterly and hopelessly wretched, by contemplating the happiness
which might have been mine once, but from which I am
now debarred for ever.”

“It may be yours yet, Marian — if you still deem it happiness
to be mine — my own — my own wife, Marian.”

“How, my lord, how?” she asked with a sort of cool and
concentrated indignation. “How, without utter infamy? You
mistake the girl you address, my lord. You little know the
heart of Marian Hawkwood, if you believe that she would
break a sister's heart, or lose her own good fame by wedding
with her traitorous and rejected lover.”

“Marian — she never loved me! Her calm and placid temper,
her equable and quiet spirit, was not made for so violent
affections, so hot passions, as true love. Even to-day —”

“Hold! my lord — hold!” Marian almost fiercely interrupted
him, “not a word more; even to-day, you told that angel, whom
in your wickedness you dare to slander, even to-day, you told
Annabel, that if I felt any passion toward you, it was a rash, unsought,
and unjustifiable passion! Those were your very
words — your very words to-day, when she would have resigned
herself, and brought us honorably wedded. Oh! man, to lie
so plausibly, and with so fair a grace, you are but too forgetful.
Begone, my lord, begone! you stand self-convicted!”

“Marian,” he replied solemnly, and lifting his right hand up
impressively to Heaven, “this is almost too painful, but I
can not, no, I can not permit innocence such as yours to be
thus played upon by jealousy and envious selfishness; I swear
to you by the honor of my father, by my mother's virtue, by

Him who made, and who now listens to us both! such words
as those never passed lip of mine — such thoughts were never
conceived in my brain.”

And it did not thunder! —

“You did not tell her that — you did not!” cried Marian,
wildly, as she sprang to her feet, “deceive me not, I adjure
you, as you love me, as you hope for salvation! deceive me
not, now, Ernest de Vaux! You did not tell her that?”

“As I hope for salvation, I did not!” and his voice did not
falter, nor his cheek blanch, nor his lip quiver, as he swore,
by the holiest and the highest thing that shall be, to that consummate
lie! “Nay, I confessed to her the whole truth; I told
her the whole truth; I told her all, and all as I have told it
now to you; I conjured her to pardon any wrong I might have
most unintentionally wrought her — for she had told me before
that, with a mien and voice as firm as mine are now, that from
the moment when she knew my love for you, she had ceased
entirely to regard or love me! and I implored her to reconcile
us two, that together we might yet be happy?”

“Can these things be?” replied Marian, gazing into his eyes
as she would read his soul. “Oh! Ernest, Ernest, if you say
these words from the hope of winning me, I do beseech you,
I do adjure you once more, on my knees, Ernest, dear, dear
Ernest — unsay, unsay it — do not, for God's sake, sow the
seeds of distrust, and enmity, and hatred, between two orphan-sisters.
Oh! spare me, Ernest De Vaux, spare me!”

“I would to God that I could!” he answered with the most
perfect and unmoved hypocrisy, “I would to God that being so
adjured, I dared unsay them. But for my soul, I dare not;
what did she tell you, Marian?”

“That you denied me — that you pronounced my love for
you, rash, unsought, unjustifiable; can it be? God! God! I
shall go mad; can it be, Annabel, that you so dealt with me?”

“And she came back to me, and told me with calm air and
pensive look, and her eyes full of hypocritical tears, `that you
were so much set against me, that you would not so much
as hear me — that you had sent me a fierce, scornful, passionate
message, which she would not do you the wrong to deliver!”'

“O Annabel! sister, sister Annabel! Heaven is my judge,
I would not so have done by you to win an eternity of blessings!”

“And me,” whispered De Vaux softly in her ears, “can you
pardon me now, my sweet Marian?”

“Nay! my lord, I have naught to pardon; we have both been
deceived, first by our own misconceptions, and then, alas! alas!
that it should be so! by my own sister's treason. If there be
any pardon to be asked, it is I that should ask yours, De Vaux.”

“It would be granted ere it would be asked, Marian,” he replied,
“but now, will you not hear me? will you not let me pray
you on” —

“Oh! no, no, Ernest, how can it be? What my God! what
would you ask of me?”

“To be mine, mine for ever — my wife, my own wife, Marian!”
And he glided his hand around her waist, and drew
her to his bosom; and she no longer shunned him, nor resisted,
and their lips mingled in a first kiss, as she sighed out that irrevocable
yes! Alas! for Marian!

“But how?” she whispered, as she extricated herself blushing
and trembling from his arms, “how can it be?”

“You must fly with me, ere dawn, my love. I have a friend
at Ripon, the worthy dean, we can frame easily a tale to win
him to our purpose, who will unite us! We will set forward
presently, my horses are equipped even now — your palfrey

shall be made ready — at the next village, we can get some
country-maiden, who will accompany you; at Ripon we shall
overtake my brothers with the troops, and all will go happily!”

At first she refused positively, then faintly and more faintly,
as that false, wily man plied her with prayers and protestations
— nay, tears even, and at last — oh! that we should be so weak
to resist deception, when our own hearts conspire with the deceiver
— at last, amid tears, and sobs, and kisses, “while saying
I `will ne'er consent,' consented.”'

13. CHAPTER XIII.

Stealthily as Marian had descended the staircase, to keep
that fatal rendezvous, more stealthily yet did she return. At
Annabel's door she again paused for a moment; but she paused
only now to mark if she slept soundly; to hear if any breath
or movement betokened that she was awake to interrupt her.
At first she heard nothing, but by-and-by, as her ear became
more and more accustomed to the silence of the house, and as
the quick beating of her own fluttering heart subsided into stillness,
which for a time had filled her ears with its tumultuous
murmur, she could distinguish, without difficulty, the deep and
regular breathing of her slumbering sister as it became distinctly
audible; and she was satisfied that from her at least
she was in no danger of any interruption. Thence the unhappy
girl crept into her mother's chamber; which, though it communicated
with Annabel's by an open door, and though she
knew that the slightest noise in that cherished chamber was
wont to arouse her sister, she felt that she must visit, ere she
could quit the home of her fathers, as she believed, for ever.

Oh! there is something indeed holy in the atmosphere of a

mother's chamber; and that holiness fell, not like a soft and
gentle balm, but like a keen and acrid irritant upon the wounded
spirit of the excited maiden. There was something in the
whole aspect of the room unaltered from her earliest childhood
— in the immovable old-fashioned furniture which had survived
in its quaint old age so many owners, which had looked on so
many changes and chances; in the grim cornices and heavy
sculptured posts of the huge canopied bedstead; in the strange
carvings of the vast oak mantelpiece, in the rich dark hues of
the brocaded hangings; in the tall cabinets of lacquered Indian
ware; in the fantastic images embossed in gold upon their
doors, at which her childhood used to shudder; in the very
ticking, slumberous and monotonous, of the old eight-day clock,
by which she was wont years ago to study her small tasks —
there was something in all this, I say, that operated strangely,
and very painfully upon the mind of Marian Hawkwood.

She was embittered, angry, jealous — yet more indignant,
heartsick, at what she believed to be Annabel's cruel treachery
— than angry or jealous either. Her soul had drunk in, and
received as truth, all the base falsehoods of that false and fickle
lover. It was perhaps impossible, after she had taken the first
false step of meeting him at all, that it should be otherwise —
and resolved as she was, that she would not permit the whole
bliss of her life to be frustrated by the premeditated baseness
of another, she yet felt and appreciated to the utmost, the
whole bitterness and agony of her position.

Her very heart was wrung by the idea of quitting that loved
home, that cherished mother, those dear memories at all — and
then to quit them, as she must, clandestinely, in shame and
darkness, and dishonor — oh! it was anguish! anguish unspeakable!

For a considerable time, Marian stood motionless beside the bed
of the paralytic woman, happy for once, at least, in the very thing

which rendered her an object of compassion; happy that she
was ignorant of the sufferings and the trials, the sins and the
sorrows, of her beloved daughter.

Wonderful, terrible contrast! the lovely face of the young girl,
in its wonted aspect so bright, so radiantly beautiful, now pale
alternately and flushed, harassed and agitated, nay, almost distorted
and showing in every line, every feature, the prevalence of
fierce and overmastering passion! And in the calm, composed,
vacant — nay! almost infantile expression of the old woman's
countenance! The one in the very spring-time of life, when
all should be innocence and peaceful mirth, so full of unnatural
and stormy tumults of the soul! The other in extreme old age,
when the traces of long cares and many sorrows are expected
to be stamped visibly on the lineaments, so perfectly, so deadly
tranquil!

For many moments she stood there, wistfully gazing on her
mother's face, as it showed paler even, and more wan and deathlike
than its wont, in the faint moonbeams; and, as she gazed,
a milder and less painful expression came over her excited features;
and her sweet, blue eyes filled with tears — not the
fierce scorching tears of passion, which seem to sear rather
than soothe the brain, but the soft, gentle drops of penitence
and moderated sorrow. She fell upon her knees beside the
bed, and burying her head in her hands, remained there half
reclined, her whole frame shuddering from time to time, with
a sharp and convulsive tremor, and the tears flowing so abundantly
that all the bed-linen was moistened by her weeping.

Whether she prayed, I know not — probably not in words,
nor in any fixed and determined mood of humble supplication
— but it would seem that she communed with herself deeply,
and called on Heaven to guide and prosper her deliberations.
For the uprose, after a little while, with a serener look and a
quieter eye, and as she rose, she said, in a whisper: “No! I

will not; I will not,” and had already turned to leave the chamber,
when from the inner room, wherein Annabel was sleeping,
there came a rustle, a short, sudden sound, which caused Marian
to stop short and listen, fearful that her sister was awakening.
All was still for two or three seconds, and then the noise
was repeated more loudly than before, and simultaneously with
the noise, several words were uttered, with that peculiar intonation
which always characterizes the speech of somnambulists.
Marian listened as though her soul was suspended on
her sense of hearing, yet, at first, she could distinguish nothing.
Annabel, however, ere long spoke again, and the second
time, unhappily, her lips syllabled, but too distinctly, the fatal
name of Ernest.

The blood rushed to the brow of Marian in a hot, burning
torrent, her eyes lightened with fiery anger — she stamped her
small foot passionately upon the carpet, and clenched her hand
so tightly that every nail left its visible point in the palm. She
ground her teeth together, and muttered through them: —

“Ah! is it then so? never — no! never shall she have him
— never! never! never!”

So slight a thing will at times suffice to change our whole
souls within us — to set our blood boiling — to alter the whole
tenor of our actions, our lives — to decide our destinies in this
world, perchance in the world to come!

One moment, Marian stood resolved to bear her sorrows boldly
and nobly — to combat with the tempter, and be strong — to
do her duty, let what might come of it! The next, and the
good resolve was swept from her heart by the wild rush of a
thousand evil and bitter thoughts, anger, resentment, jealousy,
ambition, pride! And what, what was the puissant spell that
had evoked these baneful spirits; baneful indeed, for fatal was
their consequence to her, and to all those that loved her; these
chance words spoken by a disturbed and feverish sleeper?

Alas! she paused no more, nor looked again on her scarce
living mother, nor gave heed to the memories which had but
now so nearly won her; but rushed away with fleet and noiseless
steps to her own chamber, and then busily applied herself
to her brief preparations.

Brief indeed were the preparations which she had the time
or the disposition to make, on that night! — she dressed herself
rapidly, and almost mechanically, in a dark riding-dress and
velvet cap, hurriedly thrust a single change of raiment, and the
small casket which contained her few simple jewels, into a
light travelling bag of scented cordovan leather, which had by
chance been left in her room, when the rest of her baggage
was removed on her return from York; and was, within a quarter
of an hour, prepared to set off on her untimely journey,
whither she knew not, nor when to return again!

While she was thus engaged, a little incident occurred, perhaps
scarce worth recording; yet so much wisdom may be deduced
oftentimes from observation of the smallest and most
seemingly trivial incident, and so strongly did this, I think, denote
the extreme perturbation of her mind, that I will not, trifling
although be it, leave it unmentioned.

While she was on her knees, busily packing up her case, a
beautiful tortoise-shell cat, a soft, glossy creature, which she
had reared up from a little kitten, and taught to follow her about
like a dog, jumped down out of a large arm-chair in which it
had been dozing, and trotted toward her with its tail erect, uttering
a small note of pleasure and affectionate recognition.
In a moment, seeing itself unnoticed, it laid its velvet paw upon
the arm of its young mistress with an impatient mew; but she,
preoccupied with quick and burning thoughts, repulsed her
with so rude a hand, that she was thrown off to a yard's distance,
and stood gazing as if in astonishment at so unkindly
treatment from one who had always fondled her and fed her.

The very moment after she had done this, as if repenting the
action, she caught up the little animal in her arms, and burst
into tears, as she kissed and addressed it, as if it had been a
human creature.

“Good-by,” said she, “good-by, poor Pussy; I shall never see
you any more; you will be fed by other hands, you will forget
your poor mistress, Pussy. Yet happier will you be than I —
for you will not be driven from your pleasant home — you are
not betrayed or deserted by your friends — you are not wronged
by those you love — for you love no one — happy creature! love
no one but her only to whom you look for food — happy, happy
creature! and when she quits you, will love equally the next
hand that shall fondle you! — for you, thrice happy that you
are! you are not cursed with memory, nor with affection, nor
with passion — those agonies to which we are subject.”

Then, for some minutes, she wept very bitterly, still holding
the cat in her arms, purring with pleasure, and patting its fair
mistress's cheek, with its velvet paws — until the distant sound
of a horse's foot upon the gravel road smote on her ear, a summons
to quit the home of her youth, the friends of her childhood
— and for what? When she heard it, she raised her
head, and gazed about her wildly, as if to collect her thoughts,
lifted her eyes to heaven, while her lips moved very rapidly as
if in inward prayer.

“May God forgive me!” she said, rising, “if this thing
which I do is evil; and oh! may he guard and guide my
steps aright — and may he pardon those who have driven me to
this!”

And then, without another word, she laid her little favorite gently
down on the bed, and snatching up the leathern case which
she had made ready, she hurried out of the room, not once casting
her eyes behind her, for she felt that if she did so, her resolution
was at an end at once, and stole down stairs, silent and trembling

between fear and apprehension, and something near akin
to remorse.

No sound this time came to appal her; no obstacle occurred
to interrupt her progress, yet she shuddered as she stood on the
threshold of that once happy home, and a quick, chilly spasm
ran over her whole frame, as if it were an ague fit. Her fate,
however, or at least that which men call fate, the stubborn and
determined energy of her own erring passion — cried out within
her, and nerved her body to do that which she knew to be
imprudent, and almost knew to be wrong likewise.

She raised the latch of the front door, and issued forth, closing
it carefully behind her, and stood upon the stone steps,
gazing with a wistful eye over the calm and tranquil scenery of
that fair valley. The autumn morn was already breaking
in the east, ere yet the moonlight had faded altogether from the
sky — the heavens were pure and cloudless, and colorless as a
huge vault of crystal, except where on the horizon a faint yellowish
hue was visible, first harbinger of the approaching sun.
There was not a breath of wind astir; even on the topmost
branches of the tall trees about the hall, the sere leaves,
ready to flutter down at the slightest breath, hung motionless
— here and there a gray mist wreath soared up ghostlike, in a
straight column, from some small pond or lakelet, and a light
smoky haze marked the whole course of the Wharfe through
the lowlands; the frosted dew lay silvery white over the lawn
and meadows — and not a sound or tone of any kind except the
continuous murmur of the neighboring rivulet, swelling the
louder for the cessation of all other noises, was to be heard
through the sleeping country. The earliest bird had not yet
left its roost, the very dogs were in their heaviest slumber.
And Marian, oppressed as she was by sad thoughts and heavy
memories, felt that the silence was yet more oppressive — spoke
more reproachfully to her conscience than the loudest and most

vehement rebuke. Those might have called forth anger and
awakened in her heart the spirit of resistance; this, on the contrary,
appealed to her better reason, and voiceless in its wholesome
admonition, led her to self-blame and self-accusation.

Had she stood many minutes there alone, with no other comrade
than her own restless and tormenting thoughts, it is probable
that she would have found their burden intolerable, and
have taken refuge from them in a return to her duty; but, alas!
ere the reaction came, the voice of the tempter again sounded
in her ear; and he, she loved so madly, stood beside her.

“Sweet Marian,” he murmured, gently passing his arm round
her slender waist, “why did you tarry so long? I almost
feared that something had occurred to detain you — I fancied
that your sister might have awakened, and perhaps, have even
used force to prevent you. Come, dearest, come, the horses
are prepared and await us by the hawthorn bush under the
hillock.”

Was it chance — was it accursed and premeditated art, that
led De Vaux to utter the one word that thrilled every chord of
her soul, that instantly attuned her to his purpose, banishing
every soft and tender memory, and kindling jealousy and distrust,
and almost hatred, in that impulsive soul, from which they
had been gradually fading, under the better influence of quiet
thought, aided by the tranquillizing and harmonious sympathies
of nature?

I know not; but she started as if a serpent stung her, when
the word sister fell upon her ear; and though she had almost
shrunk from De Vaux as he first approached, with something
more than the mere timidity of maiden bashfulness, she now
gave him her hand quickly, and said, in an eager, apprehensive
voice: “Come! come!”

He led her down the gentle slope, to the spot, where a single
groom, an old, grave-featured, gray-haired man, was holding

two horses, and her favorite palfrey. He lifted her to her
saddle, sprang to his own, and, without another word, they rode
away, gently and heedfully, till they had left the precincts of
the park behind them; but when they had once gained the
road, they fled at a rate that would have almost defied pursuit,
had there been any to pursue them.

But there were none; nor was her flight discovered until
she had been gone above two hours.

The morning broke, like that which had preceded it, serene,
and bright, and lovely; the great sun rushed up the blue vault
in triumphant splendor, all nature laughed out in his glory —
but at a later hour, far later than usual, no smoke was seen curling
from the precincts of the hall, or sign of man or beast was
visible about its precincts. The passionate scenes, the wild
excitement of the preceding day, had brought about, as usual,
a deep reaction; and sleep sat heavily on the eyelids, or the
souls of the inmates. The first who awoke was Annabel —
Annabel, the bereaved and almost widowed bride.

14. CHAPTER XIV.

Dressing herself in haste she sought, as usual, her mother's
chamber and found her happy — oh! how supremely happy in
her benighted state, since she knew not, nor understood at all,
the sorrows of those whom she once had loved so tenderly —
found her in a deep, calm slumber — kissed her brow silently,
and breathed a fond prayer over her, then hurried thence to
Marian's chamber. The door stood open, it was vacant! Down
the stairs to the garden — the door that led to that sweet spot
was barred and bolted — the front door stood upon the latch, and
by that Annabel passed out into the fresh young morning.

How fair, how peaceable, how calm, was all around her — how
utterly unlike the strife, the trials, the cares, the sorrows, the
hot hatreds of the animated world — how utterly unlike the anxious
pains which were then gnawing at that fair creature's
heart-strings!

She stood awhile, and gazed, around and listened, but no
sound met her ear, except the oft-heard music of the wind and
water — except the well-known points of that familiar scene;
she walked — she ran — a fresh fear struck her, a fear of she
knew not what — she flew to the garden — “Marian! Marian!”
— but no Marian came! no voice made answer to her shrill
outcries — back! back! she hurried to the house, but in her
way she crossed the road leading to the stables — there were
fresh horse-tracks — several fresh horse-tracks — one which
looked like the print of Marian's palfrey!

Without a moment's hesitation, she rushed into the stable-court;
no groom was there, nor stable-bo, nor helper — and
yet the door stood open, and a loud tremulous neighing — Annabel
knew it instantly to be the call of her own jennet — was
awakening unanswered echoes. She stood a moment like a
statue before she could command herself to cross the threshold.

She crossed it, and the stall where Marian's palfrey should
have stood, next her own, was vacant.

The chargers of De Vaux were gone; the horses of his followers
— all, all gone! She shrieked aloud — she shrieked,
till every pinnacle and turret of the old hall, till every dell and
headland of the hills, sent back a yelling echo. It scarcely
seemed a second before the courtyard, which, a moment since,
was so silent and deserted, was full of hurrying men and frightened
women — the news was instantly abroad that Mistress
Marian had been spirited away by the false lord. Horses were
saddled instantly, and broadswords girded on, and men were
mounting in hot haste, ere Annabel had in so much recovered

from the shock as to know what to order or advise — evil and
hasty counsels had been taken, but the good vicar and the prebendary
came down in time to hinder them.

A hurried consultation was held in the house, and it was
speedily determined that the two clergymen should set forth on
the instant, with a sufficient escort to pursue, and if it should
be possible, bring back the fugitive — and although Annabel at
the first was in despair, fancying that there could be no hope
of her being overtaken, yet was she somewhat reassured on
learning that De Vaux could not quit his regiment, and that the
slow route of the troopers on a long march could easily be
caught up even by aged travellers.

The sun was scarce three hours high when the pursuers
started — all that day long it lagged across the sky — it set, and
was succeeded by night, longer still, and still more dreary —
another day! and yet another! Oh, the slow agony of waiting!
the torture of enumerating minutes! — each minute seemingly
an age — the dull, heart-sickening suspense of awaiting
tidings — tidings which the heart tells us — the heart, too faithful
prophet of the future — can not, by possibility, be good!
While Reason interposes her vain veto to the heart's decision,
and Hope uplifts her false and siren song!

The third night was at hand, and Annabel was sitting at the
same window — how often it occurs, that one spot witnesses
the dozen scenes most interesting, most eventful to the same
individual.

Is it, that consciousness of what has passed, leads man to
the spot marked by one event, when he expects another? or
can it be indeed a destiny?

The third night was at hand, and Annabel was sitting at that
same window, when, on the distant highway, she beheld her
friends returning, but they rode heavily and sadly onward; nor
was there any flutter of female garbs among them. Marian

was not among them? They came — the story was soon told!
— they had succeeded in overtaking the regiment, they had
seen Ernest, and Marian was his wife!

The register of her marriage, duly attested, had been shown
to her uncle in the church at Ripon, and though she had refused
to see them, she had sent word that she was well and
happy, with many messages of love and cordiality to Annabel,
and promises that she would write at short and frequent intervals.

No more was to be done — nothing was to be said at all.
Men marvelled at De Vaux, and envied him! Women blamed
Marian Hawkwood, and they, too, envied! But Annabel said
nothing — but went about her daily duties, tending her helpless
mother, and answering her endless queries concerning Marian's
absence, and visiting her pensioners among the village poor,
seemingly cheerful and contented. But her cheek constantly
grew paler, and her form thinner and less round. The sword
was hourly wearing out the scabbard! The spirit was too
mighty for the vessel that contained it.

Five years passed thus — five wearisome long years — years
of domestic strife and civil war, of bloodshed, conflagration, and
despair, throughout all England. The party of the king, superior
at the first, was waxing daily weaker, and was almost lost.
For the first years Marian did write, and that, too, frequently
and fondly, to her sister; never alluding to the past, and seldom
to De Vaux, except to say that he was all she wished him, and
she more happy than she hoped, or deserved to be. But gradually
did the letters become less frequent and more formal;
communications were obstructed, and posts were intercepted,
and scarce, at last, did Annabel hear twice in twelve months
of her sister's welfare. And when she did hear, the correspondence
had become cold and lifeless; the tone of Marian,
too, was altered, the buoyancy was gone — the mirth — the soul

— and, though she complained not, nor hinted that she was unhappy,
yet Annabel saw plainly that it was so. Saw it, and
sorrowed, and said nothing.

Thus time passed on, with all its tides and chances, and the
old paralytic invalid was gathered to her fathers, and slept beside
her husband in the yard of the same humble church which
had witnessed their union — and Annabel was more alone than
ever.

15. CHAPTER XV.

Five years had elapsed since Marian had fled from Ingleborough
hall, and, as I have said already, Annabel knew but little
what had passed with the cherished sister since her flight.
She knew, indeed, that for the first years of her marriage she
was happy; and so joyously did she sympathize with that happiness,
so sincerely did her letters, whenever she had an opportunity
of writing, express that sympathy, unmixed with any
touch of jealousy or enviousness, that Marian could not long resist
the growth of the conviction, strengthened at every renewal
of the correspondence, that Ernest had deceived her, in
the account by which he had prevailed on her to elope with
him. It is not, perhaps, very strange, however — for we can
not call anything strange with propriety that is of usual occurrence
— that, so long as Ernest de Vaux continued to be the
rapturous lover, and after that, the gentle and assiduous husband,
she felt no resentment, nor indeed any inclination to
blame him for the deceit, which had produced only happy results
to herself, and had resulted in no permanent estrangement
or breach of confidence between herself and Annabel. What
contributed, moreover, in no slight degree to this placability on

Marian's part, was that, without ever actually confessing that
he had spoken falsely, De Vaux, as soon as she was once irrevocably
his, exerted himself to palliate the conduct of Annabel,
representing it as a natural result of galled and wounded feelings,
as a lapse to be pitied rather than blamed severely, and
effectually succeeded in re-establishing kind thoughts in her
heart. And so — for poor Annabel never knew nor imagined
aught of Marian's causeless suspicion and dislike — brought the
sisters back to their wonted footing of perfect familiarity and
untrammelled confidence.

Still, in despite of this, though Marian had nothing which
she desired to conceal from her sister, except what she believed
to be the solitary instance of deception in her husband —
which, though she excused it to herself as a sort of pious fraud,
necessary to insure her happiness, she yet felt, as it were intuitively,
that Annabel could neither regard in that light, nor ever
pardon very readily — though Marian, I say, had nothing except
this which she desired to conceal, and though her sister was the
very soul of frankness and ingenuous truth, still any correspondence,
even the freest and most unreserved, is but a sorry substitute
for personal intercourse and conversation, and can at
best but convey very slightly an idea of the true state of sentiments,
emotions, and events, especially when they are protracted
through a long course of years.

Events, and the course of the earlier part of the civil war,
which was waged for the most part in the southern and midland
counties, had prevented the sisters from meeting, Annabel remaining,
during the lifetime of her beloved mother, assiduously
and earnestly devoted to her comforts, while Marian, for the
most part, followed the court of the unhappy Charles, who, still
at Oxford or elsewhere, kept up the semblance, at least, of his
kingly style, and held his parliament of such peers as remained
true to the cause of their own order, of the church and the crown.

Among all the bold cavaliers, who fought and bled so generously
for the unhappy king, the most unhappy and least vicious
of an unhappy vicious race, there was not one more gallant, one
who achieved more glory than De Vaux. Among all the fair
dames, aristocrats of nature, as of birth, who graced the halls
of declining royalty, there was not one more lovely, more admired,
or more followed, than the bright and still happy Marian.
Delighted by the fame and honors which daily fell more thickly
on her husband, amused, pleased, and dazzled, by the novelty
of her position, for a considerable time Marian believed herself
perfectly happy, as she believed herself also to be devotedly
beloved by her husband.

The very hurry and turmoil in the midst of which she necessarily
lived, was not without its wild and half-pleasurable excitement
— after custom and experience, and the seeing him return
home victorious and unwounded, had steeled her against
the terrors and the anguish which assailed her at first, whenever
he rode forth to battle; there was a sort of charm in the
short absences, from which he ever hurried home, as it appeared
more fond and more enamored than in the first days of
her wedded life. This hurry and turmoil, moreover, afforded
to De Vaux constant and plausible excuses by which to account
for and mask his irregularities, which became in truth more and
more frequent, as the fresh character and lovely person of his
wife gradually palled on him by possession. For in truth he
was a wild, reckless, fickle man — not by any means all evil,
or without many generous and gentle impulses, although these
had been growing daily weaker and less frequent through a life
of self-indulgence and voluptuousness, till very little was now
left of his original promise, save courtly manners, a fair exterior,
and — simply to do him justice — a courage as indomitable, cool,
and sustained, as it was vigorous and fiery.

He lived in a period of much license — he was the eldest son

of a doating father — he had lost his mother, while he was yet
a mere boy — all three vast disadvantages — vast misfortunes to
a young man. Indulged to the utmost of his wild and fantastic
wishes by his father, encouraged rather than checked in those
extravagances which the cavaliers of the day affected somewhat,
in order to mask their detestation of the cold-blooded hypocrisy
and ridiculously insincere profession of those most odious
impostors who constituted the vast majority of the puritanic
leaders — launched very young into the world, with handsome
person, courtly manners, high rank, and almost boundless wealth,
his success with the women of the court, in an age the most
licentious England had then witnessed, was wide and unbounded.

He had already become the most hardened being in the
world, a cool voluptuary, a sensual, luxurious, calculating courtier,
when he met Marian at the sheriff's ball, at York, and
was struck instantly by her extraordinary beauty. Having approached
her in consequence of this admiration, tired as he
was, and sick of the hackneyed and artificial characters, the
affectations, and minauderies, and want of heart of all the women
with whom he had as yet been familiar, he was soon yet
more captivated by the freshness of her soul, the artlessness of
her manner, the frank, ingenuous, off-handed simplicity of her
bright, innocent youth, fearless of wrong, and unsuspicious of
evil, than he had been by her beauty. So that before he was
compelled by paramount duty — the only duty which he owned,
military duty, namely — to quit York, he was as much in love
as his evil course of life and acquired habits had left him the
power of being, with the sweet country maiden. That is to
say — he had determined that the possession of her was actually
necessary to his existence, and a thing to be acquired on
any terms — nay! he had even thought many times, that she
might be endurable for a much longer period than any of his

former loves, and begun to fancy, that, when his passion should
have settled down into esteem, he might be able to tolerate in
Marian Hawkwood, the character he most dreaded in the
world, that of a lawful wife

There was something in the whole air and demeanor of Marian
Hawkwood, that told the young debauchee, almost instinctively,
that there was but one name in which she could be
addressed — a purity and innocence of heart and manner, likewise,
which would have prevented the most dissolute and daring
of mankind from dreaming even of approaching her with dishonorable
addresses. Now, it was difficult for a man of De
Vaux's character and principles — if that can be called principle
which is rather a total absence of all principle — accustomed
to doubt and disbelieve and to sneer at the possibility of female
virtue, to bring himself to the resolution of deliberately offering
his hand to any woman, how passionately he might be attached
to her soever; and this difficulty of making up his own mind it
was, and not any timidity or bashfulness — things utterly strange
and unknown to his hard and worldly nature — which caused
that irresolution which had given offence so deep to Marian
Hawkwood.

It can not be denied that her manner on that interview did
pique and provoke him beyond measure — that it threw him into
doubt as to the question whether she did indeed love him or
not, and by awakening for a moment an idea of the possibility
of his being rejected — an idea which had never so much as
occurred to him before, even casually, materially increased his
dislike to subsiding into a tranquil and domestic Benedict.

These were the real reasons for his seemingly extraordinary
conduct toward Marian in the first place; and not at all that
which he had stated, for he had been indeed false — false from
the beginning.

It was then in a singular state of mind, vexed with himself

and irritated at finding himself subject to a passion seemingly
hopeless, annoyed that he was unable to shake off that passion
lightly, indignant with Marian for not appreciating sufficiently
the honor he had done her, in so much as thinking of making
her his wife, foiled, furious, discontented, and devoured all the
time by the agony of his fierce desire — for it is mere profanation
to call that which he felt, love — he set forth from York to
visit, as he imagined, the father of his cruel, fair one.

Many wild schemes and projects flitted through his mind as
he journeyed westward, which it were neither profitable nor
pleasing to follow out; but each and all of these had reference
to winning Marian in some shape or other, and at some period
not remote.

What occurred when he reached Ingleborough, is known already
to those who have thus far followed the fortunes of the
sisters; but what in truth passed in the recesses of his own
heart has never been divulged, nor can be known to any one.
It may be that pique and anger at Marian's manner when they
parted had really disposed him, as he said, to love another
honestly and truly. It may be that the exquisite repose and
charming sweetness of Annabel did indeed win upon his soul
and work for the time a partial reformation — but what alone is
certain is, that he felt more of that repugnance to sacrificing
what he called his liberty, which had actuated him with regard
to Marian, when he proposed to Annabel.

It may be, on the other hand — and it would be by no means
inconsistent with either his past character or after conduct —
that fickle and light as he was, and very liable to be captivated
for the moment by the charms of women, that, I say, he was
influenced by a twofold motive — twofold and doubly base — of
gratifying a passing caprice in marrying Annabel, and inflicting
the heaviest punishment he could imagine on her sister at the
same time. It is probable, even, that he might have had baser

and more infamous projects in view, with respect to poor Marian;
and it is certain that he looked to the disturbed and perilous
state of the country, as to a favorable position of things
to his purpose, should he desire to abandon his fair, young wife
after a time — seeing that she had no influential relations to
protect her, and that if peace should be restored at last, little
inquiry was likely to be made after affairs of mere personal
consideration.

Frustrated in his intentions by the return of Marian, and by
her inability to conceal the violence of the hopeless love which
she still nourished for her sister's wooer, although she nourished
it without one thought of evil entering her pure spirit, having
betrayed moreover his own maddening passion, which returned
upon him with redoubled violence, when he was thrown again
into her society, he could not endure the scorn, the contempt,
which he felt gathering around him, nor bear the publicity of
his disappointment.

It was the fear of this publicity, then, and the determination
that he would, under no circumstances, leave Ingleborough in
the character of a rejected and disappointed suitor, that induced
him to renew his solicitations to poor Marian. Shrewd and
keen-sighted, and able judge of character as he was, he readily
perceived that in the calm and composed soul of Annabel Hawkwood,
there was a deep, settled principle, a firm and resolute
will, a determination capable of calling forth any powers, whether
it were to do or endure. It required, therefore, little reflection
to show him that with her he had now no possibility of
succeeding — that once detected, as he felt himself to be, his
whole mind and motives perused and understood as if they had
been written out in a fair book for her inspection, the very love
which she had entertained for him in the past, would but the
more strongly arm her against him in the present.

Nor was this all — for even his effrontery was at fault, even

his natural audacity shrank from encountering the tranquil
scorn, the quiet and unutterable loathing which he saw visible
in every glance of her mild eye. Ere long, between the sense
that he had irreparably injured her, and the knowledge that
she understood him thoroughly, he came to hate her with a vehement
and bitter hatred.

In this hatred, too, he found a new instigation to persevere
in his attempts on Marian, for he was certain that, although
the ordinary sources of annoyance, envy or jealousy, could never
inflict a single sting on Annabel, he could wreak no heavier
vengeance on her than by making her beloved sister his wife
— the wife of a man whom she despised so utterly — and he
acknowledged it in his own secret soul — so worthily.

Unhappily, in the impulsive and impetuous character of Marian,
which he had studied to its inmost depths, he encountered
no such resistance as he knew he should encounter from her
sister. Falsehoods which would have been discovered instantly
and rejected with scarce a consideration, by the quiet thoughtfulness
and innocent penetration of the elder sister, wakened
suspicions in the quicker mind of the younger, galled her to
the very quick, dwelt in her heart, filling it with bitterness and
gall, and at last ripened into terrible and dark convictions of
the unworthiness of her who was, in truth, the best of sisters,
and the tenderest of friends.

These were the motives, these the means of Ernest de Vaux
— and we have seen, alas! how fully they succeeded.

What are the necessary consequences of a marriage contracted
with such views as these, founded upon a man's caprice for a
woman whom he would have made his mistress if he could,
and only made his wife because he could by no other means
possess her, can not be doubted.

Nothing first could be happier than Marian Hawkwood —
for she mistook, naturally enough, the fierce and violent passion

of her young husband for genuine and veritable love; and, indeed,
after satiety and possession had long dulled the ardor of
this passion, circumstances for a long time conspired to keep
up the illusion in the mind of Marian. The hurried and changeful
life which they led; the very large portion of their time
which was passed, to a certain degree, in public; the gratified
vanity of her husband at the admiration which she excited
everywhere, and which delighted his vain and fickle temperament
long after he had ceased himself to care for her, all tended
to delay the fatal discovery, which it was clear that she must
one day make, that she was loved no longer.

At first, as she perceived that his attentions were declining,
that he no longer hurried homeward with eager haste, his duty
in the camp or in the court accomplished, that the revel or the
dice detained him, she threw the blame on the unsettled times,
on the demoralizing influence of civil warfare, and wild company,
and the want of a permanent and happy home. She prayed,
and believed that with the war these things, which were converting
fast her life into one scene of sorrow, would come to an
end, and that shortly.

But neither did the war, nor the sorrows which she attributed
to that war, seem likely to be brought to any speedy or even
favorable termination.

No children had blessed that ill-fated union, and Marian,
when she did not, in obedience to the order of her husband, go
into the court gayeties, such as they were at that time, was
almost entirely alone.

Alone she brooded in despondency, almost in despair, over
her hapless present life, and almost hopeless future. Write to
her sister of her griefs she could not; where was the use of
torturing that worn heart with other sorrows, when she must
needs have enough sorrow of her own.

Abroad she was subject to the twofold agony of witnessing

the bold and open faithlessness of her husband, his infamous
addresses to the wild and licentious beauties, made, perhaps,
wild and licentious by the extravagance of their natural protectors,
and the strange and corrupting circumstances of the times
— and of enduring the base solicitations and addresses of the
gay friends of her husband — solicitations and addresses which
she could scarce believe were unknown to him, who, most of
all men, should have resented and avenged them.

Thus year by year dragged on, until Marian, thoroughly convinced
of her husband's infidelity and baseness, which, indeed,
he scarce now affected to conceal, was the most miserable of
her sex.

All her high spirits had taken to themselves wings, and flown
away — all her wild daring elasticity of character — tameless
gayety, which was so beautiful of old — her strong impulsive
frankness — were broken, gone, obliterated. She had become
a quiet, sad, heart-broken, meditative creature. Yet she repined
not ever — nor approached him — nor gave way to sadness
in his presence — but strove, poor wretch, to put on a semblance
of the manners which he had once seemed to love, and
her pale lips still wore a sickly smile as he drew near, and a
wild cheerfulness would animate her for a moment; if, by
chance, he spoke kindly, a hope would arise within her that he
might still be reclaimed to the ways of virtue and of love.

But still the hope was deferred, and her heart grew sick, and
utter gloom took possession of her; so that she now looked forward
to no other termination of her sorrows than the grave, and
to that she indeed looked forward, at what time it should seem
good to Him to send it, who orders all things, and all wisely.

16. CHAPTER XVI.

Thus then had the days passed with Marian during those
years of which her sister knew so little, each day sadder and
bearing less of hope than the last. She had heard of her
mother's death, that mother whom she had once so cherished,
whose memory was still so dear to her — yet had those gloomy
tidings brought no increase to the unhappy wife's cold sadness.
No! so completely had the hardening touch of despair petrified
all her feelings, that she now felt that nothing could increase or
diminish the burden under which she labored. If she thought
of the dead at all, it was to envy, not weep — it was to clasp
her hands, and turn her eyes up to heaven, and to cry — “Blessed
are the dead, who die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit;
for they rest from their labors!” And worse every day,
and more vicious — ay! and more loathsome and more cruel in
his vices, did Ernest de Vaux show himself. Alas! the career
of virtue is as it were on a road up a steep mountain's side.
There is no halting on the way, no standing still — no power
of remaining where you are. Upward or downward, you must
on, and on for ever! Upward with conscientious hopes
and earnest struggles and energetical resolves to virtue, and to
honor, and to peace — or downward, with headlong speed, to
crime, and agony, and ruin, and that perdition which shall not
end when all things else have reached their termination. Alas!
I say — alas! for this latter was the path in which the steps of
De Vaux were hurrying, and toward this termination.

From gentlemanly vice, as it is falsely called, and those extravagances
or excesses rather, of which men, deemed by the
world honorable, may be guilty without losing caste, Ernest

began now to degenerate into low profligacy, vulgar habitual
debauchery! His noble features and fine form had already begun
to display the symptoms of habitual intemperance; his
courtly manners and air, once so noble, had deteriorated sadly;
his temper, equable and mild, and at the least in outward show
so kindly, had become harsh, and querulous, uneven, and at
times violent and brutal.

Yet Marian still clung to him, faithful in weal and wo, in
wealth as in poverty — for at times, in the changes and chances
of the civil war, they had in truth undergone much hardship —
she was still the unchanged, unrepining, fond consoler — but
alas! how cruelly, and how often were her sweet consolations
cast back upon her, her kind and affectionate advances met with
harsh words, and bitter menaces — and once! yes, once, when
the mad demon of intoxication was all-powerful within him —
yes! once with a blow.

It was the fifth year of the civil war, and though many fierce
and sanguinary fields had been fought, many towns taken, many
halls and manor-houses stormed and defended, much generous,
noble blood prodigally wasted, neither side yet had gained anything
of real or permanent advantage. It was the fifth year of
the civil war, and the marquis of Newcastle, one of the most
accomplished and gallant noblemen of the day, was holding
York for the king, though besieged by an overwhelming force,
by the united forces of the English puritans and independents,
under Lord Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell, and the Scotch covenanters,
under David Leslie, and many of the protestant lords
of the sister-kingdom.

The siege had indeed lasted some time, but although those
within the city were beginning to look eagerly for the relief
which was expected daily from Prince Rupert, they were not
as yet straitened for provision, or dispirited. And here in the
midst of present apprehension, and perhaps soon to be in the

midst of peril, here in the very city, wherein she had passed
those few bright days, the brightest and the happiest of her
life, alas! that they should have led to consequences so cruelly
disastrous — here, in a poor, mean lodging in a small, narrow
street, nigh Stonegate, dwelt the once bright and happy Marian.

It was night, and although summer-time, the air was exceeding
damp and chilling. It was night, dead night, and quite
dark, for there was no moon, and the skies were so cloudy that
the faint glimmer of the stars failed to pierce their thick
folds. There were no sounds abroad in the beleaguered city
but the distant call from hour to hour of the answered sentinel,
and the occasional tramp and clash of arms, as the grand rounds
passed through the streets to visit the outposts, or the relief
parties marched toward the walls.

At this dead hour of the night, in a small, wretched parlor,
scantily furnished with a few common wooden chairs, a coarse
oak table, on which stood a brazen lamp diffusing a pale, uncertain
light through the low-roofed apartment, and sufficing
barely to show the extreme poverty and extreme cleanliness of
that abode of high-born beauty, sat Marian, Lady de Vaux,
plainly attired, and in nowise becomingly to her high station,
pale, wan, and thin, and careworn, and no more like to the Marian
Hawkwood of old days than the poor disembodied ghost to
the fair form it once inhabited.

The floor of the wretched room was neatly sanded, for it was
carpetless, and no curtains veiled the small latticed casements
— the walls were hung with defensive armor and a few weapons,
two or three cloaks and feathered hats, disposed with a
sad attempt at symmetrical arrangement and decoration — four
or five books, some paper and materials for writing, and an old
lute lay on the table by which Marian was sitting, and on another
smaller board at a little distance, neatly arranged with a
clean white cloth, stood a loaf of bread, the remnants, now very

low reduced, of a sirloin, and a half bottle of red wine — the
supper prepared by the hapless wife, herself fasting and hungered,
for the base recreant husband.

An open Bible lay before Marian on the board, but though
her eyes rested on the blessed promises, and her hands, at
times, as if mechanically, turned its pages, her mind was far
away, suspended on every distant sound that rose from the deserted
streets, starting at every passing footstep, with a strange
mixture as it seemed of eager expectation and wild fear.

At length a quick, strong, heavy tread came up the street,
and paused under the window.

“It is he,” she said, listening intently, with a deep crimson
flush rising to her whole face, but receding rapidly, and leaving
only two round hectic spots high up on her cheek-bones.
“Thank God! it is he at last!” and she arose and trimmed the
lamp, and drew the little table forward with the preparation for
his supper — but, as the door below yielded to the pass-key
which he carried, she started and turned white as ashes; for
the sound of a second step reached her ears, and the soft cadence
of a female voice. She paused, with her soul intent
upon the sound, and as they came nearer and nearer, and more
and more distinct —

“My God!” she said to herself, in a low, choked whisper,
clasping her hands together, as if in mortal anguish, “my God!
it can not be!”

But it was — it was, as she dreaded, as she would not believe!
Shame on the dastard villain! it was true!

The door opened suddenly, and Ernest de Vaux entered,
with a tall and exceedingly handsome woman leaning upon his
arm, whom Marian recognised the very moment their eyes met,
for the Lady Agnes Trevor, of whose bold and shameless conduct
with her husband she had long heard, though she strove
to close her ears to them, a thousand cruel rumors. This last

worst outrage, however, was not without its effect; even the
worm, when trodden under foot, will, it is said, rise up against
its torturer; and even her base husband was astonished at the
superb and stately majesty with which the wronged and heart-broken
woman drew herself up, as they entered — at the flash of
grand indignation which lightened from every speaking feature;
if he had calculated that her spirit was so utterly cowed
and broken, that she would endure everything in silence, madly
had he erred, and tremendously was he now undeceived.

Even the guilty woman who accompanied him, started back
and in dismay; it would appear even that she had not known
before whither he was conducting her, for she shrank back
aghast, and clung to his arm yet closer than before, as she
asked in a tremulous and agitated tone, “Who is this? who is
this lady, Ernest?”

“It is his wife, madam!” replied Marian, taking a forward
step; “his wedded wife, for whom it is rather to ask, who you
are, that intrude thus upon her, at this untimely hour?”

“It is my wife, Agnes,” answered De Vaux at the same
moment, “my wife, who will be happy to extend her hospitality
to you, until these most unhappy jars are ended, and you reconciled
to my lord; Marian, it is the Lady Agnes Trevor, who
asks your welcome; assure her—”

“I do assure her,” replied Marian, haughtily, “that she is
perfectly, fully welcome to enjoy all the comforts, all the hospitalities
which this roof has to offer — this roof—”

“Why, that is well,” replied her husband, with a sneering
smile; “I told you, Agnes, she would be very glad to receive
you; she is a sweet, mild, patient little creature, this pretty wife
of mine!”

“This roof,” continued Marian, “which, from this hour, shall
never cover my head any more.”

“Heyday! heyday! what is all this? what does this mean?”

“It means, simply, that hitherto I have borne much, have
borne all — but infamy. And infamy I will bear never. Fare
you well, sir; may you repent, I say — may you repent, I say,
and ere it be too late; and may you,” she added, turning to the
frail beauty, who trembled in her presence, “may you never
know the agonies which you have heaped upon my soul!”

And she passed by them, with a movement so impetuously
rapid, that she was out of the door before Ernest, to whom
Agnes Trevor was clinging still in mortal terror, could interpose
to arrest her flight. But recovering himself, instantly he
darted after and caught her by her dress, and would have
dragged her back into the room, but she laid hold of the balustrades
of the staircase, and clung to them so strongly, that he
could not move her.

“Do you so little know me, Marian,” he exclaimed furiously,
“as to imagine that I would suffer my wife to go forth alone, a
mark for evil tongues, at such an hour as this? Back, Madam
Marian! back to your chamber, or you will force me to do that
which I shall be sorry for!”

“Sorry for!” answered Marian, with calm scorn, “you sorry
for aught of injury to me! and do you, sir, so little know me,
as to imagine that I would stay one moment under the same
roof with your—”

“With my what? — with my what, madam?” shouted De
Vaux, “beware how you answer!”

“Unhand me, sir, unhand me!” she replied, “unhand me;
for I will go forth!”

“Answer me; with my what? under the same roof with my
what?” he again exclaimed, shaking her violently by the arm.

“With your harlot, sir,” she replied, firmly, and at the same
moment two fearful sounds followed her words; one the most
fearful sound, perhaps, that can be heard on earth at all; the
sound of a heavy blow dealt by a man to a weak woman; the

other a wild, piercing female shriek — a shriek that echoed far
and wide through the midnight city. But it came not, that awful
shriek, from the lips of Marian.

No, no; it was the reckless, the abandoned, outcast wife of
Lord Albert Trevor, that uttered the heart-rending cry, as she
rushed with a frantic air out of the chamber, and threw herself
at the feet of her seducer, and clasping his knees wildly with
one hand, caught with the other his upraised right arm — upraised
to smite again her whom he had sworn to love and honor.

“Me, me!” she cried, “oh, God — me! me! not her — strike
me — strike me, not her! for I deserve it — deserve it all — all
— all — me, as she rightly termed me; me, the outcast — the
harlot!”

And with so powerful a grasp, moved by the ecstasy of remorse
and frenzy, did the frail creature restrain the ruffian's
fury, that he was forced to stoop down and exert some power to
remove her. But the moment Marian perceived what was passing,
she darted down the stairs, and through the front door,
which she closed violently behind her, and into the vacant
street, and fled with a speed that soon set pursuit at defiance.
That night she slept at her old uncle's house in the minster
yard, the following day York was relieved, and the siege of the
puritans raised by the fiery Rupert. On the third morning the
royal troops sallied forth to give battle to the troops of Fairfax
upon the fatal moor of Long Marston, and while the roar of
cannon was deafening the ears of all for miles around her, and
her bad husband was charging in the maddest strife, Marian
was hurrying home to die — hurrying home to die in the calm
shades of Wharfdale.

17. CHAPTER XVII.

Thus things went on in the busy world abroad, and at home
in the quiet vale of Ingleborough, until some few days after the
deadly fight and desperate defeat at Long Marston.

Autumn had come again — brown autumn — and Annabel,
now in her garden tending her flowers, and listening to her
birds, and thinking of the past, not with the keen and piercing
anguish of a present sorrow, but with the mellow recollection
of an old regret. She stood beside the stream — the stream
that all unchanged itself had witnessed such sad changes in all
that was around it — close to the spot where she had talked so
long with Marian on that eventful morning, when a quick, soft
step came behind her; she turned, and Marian clasped her!

No words can describe the feelings of the sisters as they
met; and it was not till after many a fond embrace, and many
a burst of tears, that Marian told her how, after years of sufferance,
compelled at last to fly from the outrageous cruelty of
him, for whom she had thrown up all but honor, she now came
home — home, like the hunted hare to her form, like the wounded
bird to her nest — she now came home to die. “What could
it boot,” she said, “to repeat the old and oft-told tale, how eager
passion made way for uncertain and oft-interrupted gleams of
fondness How a love founded on no esteem or real principles,
melted like wax before the fire. How inattention paved
the way for neglect, and infidelity came close behind, and open
profligacy, and bold insult, and cool, maddened outrage followed.
How the ardent lover became the careless husband, the cold
master, the unfeeling tyrant, and at last the brutal despot.”

Marian came home to die — the seeds of that invincible disease
were sown deep in her bosom; her exquisitely rounded
shape was angular and thin, emaciated by disease, and suffering,

and sorrow. A burning, hectic spot on either cheek were
now the only remnants of that once all-radiant complexion;
her step so slow and faltering, her breath drawn sob by sob
with actual agony, her quick, short cough, all told too certainly
the truth! Her faults were punished bitterly on earth, and
happily that punishment had worked its fitting end — these
faults were all repented, were all amended now. Perhaps at
no time of her youthful bloom had Marian been so sweet, so
truly lovely, as now when her young days were numbered.

All the asperity and harshness, the angles as it were of her
character, mellowed down into a calm and unrepining cheerfulness.
And oh! with what delicious tenderness did Annabel
console, and pray with, and caress her — oh! they were, indeed,
happy! indeed happy for those last months, those lovely
sisters. For Annabel's delight at seeing the dear Marian of
happier days once more beside her in their old chamber, beside
her in the quiet garden, beside her in the pew of the old
village-church, had, for the time, overpowered her fears for her
sister's health, and as is almost invariably the case in that most
fatal, most insidious of disorders, she constantly was flattered
with vain hopes that Marian was amending, that the next
spring would see her again well and happy. Vain hopes!
indeed, vain hopes; but which of mortal hopes is other?

The cold mists of November were on the hills and in the
glens of Wharfdale; the trees were stripped of their last leaves,
the grass was sere and withered, the earth cheerless, the skies
comfortless, when, at the same predestined window, the sisters
sat watching the last gleam of the wintry sun fade on the distant
hill-top. What was that flash far up the road? That round
and ringing report? Another! and another! the evident reports
of musketry. And lo! a horseman flying — a wild fierce
troop pursuing — the foremost rides bareheaded, but the blue
scarf that flutters in the air, shows him a loyal cavalier; the

steel caps and jack-boots of the pursuers, point them out, evidently,
puritans; there are but twenty of them, and lo! the fugltive
gains on them — Heaven! he turns from the highroad!
crosses the steep bridge at a gallop! he takes the park gate at
a leap! he cuts across the turf! and lo! the dalesmen and the
tenants have mustered to resist — a short, fierce struggle! the
roundheads are beaten back! the fugitive, now at the very hall
doors, is preserved. The door flew open; he staggered into
the well-known vestibule, opened the parlor-door with an accustomed
hand, reeled into the presence of the sisters exhausted
with fatigue; pale from loss of blood, faint with his mortal
wounds — yet he spoke out in a clear voice: —

“In time, in time, I thank God! In time to make some reparation
— to ask pardon, ere I die.”

And with these words, De Vaux, for it was he, staggered up
to his injured wife, and dropping on his knees, cast his arms
around her waist, and burying his head in her lap, exclaimed
in faltering tones: —

“Pardon me, Marian, pardon me, before I die — pardon me,
as you loved me once.”

“Oh! as I love you now, dear Ernest, fully, completely,
gladly do I pardon you, and take you to my heart, never again
to part, my own dear husband.”

Annabel saw her head fall on his neck, and fancying she had
fainted, ran to uplift her; but ere she had time to do so, both
were beyond the reach of any mortal sorrow. Nor did she,
the survivor, tarry long behind them. She faded like a fair
flower, and lies beside them in the still bosom of a common
tomb. The hall was tenanted no more, and soon fell into ruin.
But the wild hills of Wharfdale must themselves pass away,
before the children of the dalesmen shall forget the sad tale of
“The Rival Sisters.”