but with the
most apparent signs of mental agitation on his countenance.

"Helen," said he at length, in a low, earnest tone, "Helen, thou
wert worthy of a better fate than to be linked to the endurance of my
waywardness; but God who sees thine unmurmuring patience, will give
thee strength to meet thy destiny. Thou hast scarcely enough of womanly
weakness in thee to shrink from idle terrors, or I might strive to
appall thee," he added faintly smiling, "with a description of the
gloom and discomfort of thine unknown northern mansion; but if thou art
willing to bear with its scanty means of accommodation, as well as with
thy husband's variable temper, come with him to the Cross."

Helen longed to throw herself into his arms as in happier days, when he
granted her petition, but she had been more than once repulsed from
his bosom, and she therefore contented herself with thanking him
respectfully; and in another week, they became inmates of Greville
Cross.

The evening whose stormy and endless commencement I have before
described, was the fourth after her arrival in the North; and
notwithstanding the anxiety she had felt for a change of habitation, she
could not disguise from herself that there was an air of desolation,
a general aspect of dreariness about her new abode which justified
the description afforded by her husband. As she crossed the portal, a
sensation of terror ill-defined, but painful and overwhelming, smote
upon her heart, such as we feel in the presence of a secret enemy,
and Lord Greville's increasing uneasiness and abstraction since he had
returned to the mansion of his forefathers, did not tend to enliven
its gloomy precincts. The wind beat wildly against the casement of
the apartment in which they sat, and which although named "the lady's
chamber," afforded none of those feminine luxuries, which are now to be
found in the most remote parts of England, in the dwellings of the
noble and wealthy. By the side of a huge hearth, where the crackling and
blazing logs imparted the only cheerful sound or sight in the apartment,
in a richly-carved oaken chair emblazoned with the armorial bearings
of his house, sat Lord Greville, lost in silent contemplation. A chased
goblet of wine with which he occasionally moistened his lips, stood on a
table beside him, on which an elegantly-fretted silver lamp was burning;
and while it only emitted sufficient light to render the gloom of the
spacious chamber still more appar