much
so.'

'Ah!' thought Mrs. Henley, 'these young men always hang together;' and
she let him escape without further question. But, when he emerged from
the house, Guy was already out of sight, and he could not succeed in
finding him.

Guy had burst out of the house, feeling as if nothing could relieve
him but free air and rapid motion; and on he hurried, fast, faster,
conscious alone of the wild, furious tumult of rage and indignation
against the maligner of his innocence, who was knowingly ruining him
with all that was dearest to him, insulting him by reproaches on his
breaking a most sacred, unblemished word, and, what Guy felt scarcely
less keenly, forcing kind-hearted Mr. Edmonstone into a persecution so
foreign to his nature. The agony of suffering such an accusation, and
from such a quarter,--the violent storm of indignation and pride,--wild,
undefined ideas of a heavy reckoning,--above all, the dreary thought of
Amy denied to him for ever,--all these swept over him, and swayed him
by turns, with the dreadful intensity belonging to a nature formed for
violent passions, which had broken down, in the sudden shock, all the
barriers imposed on them by a long course of self-restraint.

On he rushed, reckless whither he went, or what he did, driven forward
by the wild impulse of passion, far over moor and hill, up and down,
till at last, exhausted at once by the tumult within, and by the
violent bodily exertion, a stillness--a suspension of thought and
sensation--ensued; and when this passed, he found himself seated on
a rock which crowned the summit of one of the hills, his handkerchief
loosened, his waistcoat open, his hat thrown off, his temples burning
and throbbing with a feeling of distraction, and the agitated beatings
of his heart almost stifling his panting breath.

'Yes,' he muttered to himself, 'a heavy account shall he pay me for this
crowning stroke of a long course of slander and ill-will! Have I not
seen it? Has not he hated me from the first, misconstrued every word and
deed, though I have tried, striven earnestly, to be his friend,--borne,
as not another soul would have done, with his impertinent interference
and intolerable patronizing airs! But he has seen the last of it!
anything but this might be forgiven; but sowing dissension between me
and the Edmonstones--maligning me there. Never! Knowing, too, as he
seems to do, how I stand, it is the very ecstasy of malice! Ay! this
very night it shall