, and dropping
gradually as my steps departed; the sunken, absorbed expression of face,
form, and gesture, so steeped in the very bitterness of dejection,--all
are before me now, sorrowful, and lovely in sorrow, as they were beheld
years ago, by the gray, cold, comfortless light of morning!

"God bless you,--my own, own love," I said; and as my look lingered,
I added, with a full but an assured heart; "and He will!" I tarried
no more: I flung myself on my horse, and rode on as if I were speeding
_to_, and not _from_, my bride.

The noon was far advanced, as, the day after I left Isora, I found
myself entering the park in which Devereux Court is situated. I did not
enter by one of the lodges, but through a private gate. My horse was
thoroughly jaded; for the distance I had come was great, and I had
ridden rapidly; and as I came into the park, I dismounted, and, throwing
the rein over my arm, proceeded slowly on foot. I was passing through a
thick, long plantation, which belted the park and in which several walks
and rides had been cut, when a man crossed the same road which I took,
at a little distance before me. He was looking on the ground, and
appeared wrapt in such earnest meditation that he neither saw nor heard
me. But I had seen enough of him, in that brief space of time, to feel
convinced that it was Montreuil whom I beheld. What brought him hither,
him, whom I believed in London, immersed with Gerald in political
schemes, and for whom these woods were not only interdicted ground, but
to whom they must have also been but a tame field of interest, after
his audiences with ministers and nobles? I did not, however, pause
to consider on his apparition; I rather quickened my pace towards the
house, in the expectation of there ascertaining the cause of his visit.

The great gates of the outer court were open as usual: I rode
unheedingly through them, and was soon at the door of the hall. The
porter, who unfolded to my summons the ponderous door, uttered, when
he saw me, an exclamation that seemed to my ear to have in it more of
sorrow than welcome.

"How is your master?" I asked.

The man shook his head, but did not hasten to answer; and, impressed
with a vague alarm, I hurried on without repeating the question. On the
staircase I met old Nicholls, my uncle's valet; I stopped and questioned
him. My uncle had been seized on the preceding day with gout in the
stomach; medical aid had been procured, but it was feared