lf to Diana, "since I am
prepared to believe all that is worthy of Mr. Francis Osbaldistone.
Permit us now to retire; we must take repose when we can, since we are
absolutely uncertain when we may be called upon to renew our perilous
journey."

He drew his daughter's arm within his, and with a profound reverence,
disappeared with her behind the tapestry.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.

But now the hand of fate is on the curtain,
And gives the scene to light.
Don Sebastian.

I felt stunned and chilled as they retired. Imagination, dwelling on an
absent object of affection, paints her not only in the fairest light, but
in that in which we most desire to behold her. I had thought of Diana as
she was, when her parting tear dropped on my cheek--when her parting
token, received from the wife of MacGregor, augured her wish to convey
into exile and conventual seclusion the remembrance of my affection. I
saw her; and her cold passive manner, expressive of little except
composed melancholy, disappointed, and, in some degree, almost offended
me.

In the egotism of my feelings, I accused her of indifference--of
insensibility. I upbraided her father with pride--with cruelty--with
fanaticism,--forgetting that both were sacrificing their interest, and
Diana her inclination, to the discharge of what they regarded as their
duty.

Sir Frederick Vernon was a rigid Catholic, who thought the path of
salvation too narrow to be trodden by an heretic; and Diana, to whom her
father's safety had been for many years the principal and moving spring
of thoughts, hopes, and actions, felt that she had discharged her duty in
resigning to his will, not alone her property in the world, but the
dearest affections of her heart. But it was not surprising that I could
not, at such a moment, fully appreciate these honourable motives; yet my
spleen sought no ignoble means of discharging itself.

"I am contemned, then," I said, when left to run over the tenor of Sir
Frederick's communications--"I am contemned, and thought unworthy even to
exchange words with her. Be it so; they shall not at least prevent me
from watching over her safety. Here will I remain as an outpost, and,
while under my roof at least, no danger shall threaten her, if it be such
as the arm of one determined man can avert."

I summoned Syddall to the library. He came, but came attended by the
eternal Andr