e, when each minute that passes is loaded with
dishonour!"

"I have heard that I am dishonoured, lady, and I have heard it from
you," answered Kenneth. "What reck I how soon punishment follows? I
have but one petition to you; and then I seek, among the sabres of the
infidels, whether dishonour may not be washed out with blood."

"Do not so, neither," said the lady. "Be wise--dally not here; all may
yet be well, if you will but use dispatch."

"I wait but for your forgiveness," said the knight, still kneeling,
"for my presumption in believing that my poor services could have been
required or valued by you."

"I do forgive you--oh, I have nothing to forgive! have been the means of
injuring you. But oh, begone! I will forgive--I will value you--that is,
as I value every brave Crusader--if you will but begone!"

"Receive, first, this precious yet fatal pledge," said the knight,
tendering the ring to Edith, who now showed gestures of impatience.

"Oh, no, no " she said, declining to receive it. "Keep it--keep it as a
mark of my regard--my regret, I would say. Oh, begone, if not for your
own sake, for mine!"

Almost recompensed for the loss even of honour, which her voice had
denounced to him, by the interest which she seemed to testify in his
safety, Sir Kenneth rose from his knee, and, casting a momentary glance
on Edith, bowed low, and seemed about to withdraw. At the same instant,
that maidenly bashfulness, which the energy of Edith's feelings had till
then triumphed over, became conqueror in its turn, and she hastened from
the apartment, extinguishing her lamp as she went, and leaving, in Sir
Kenneth's thoughts, both mental and natural gloom behind her.

She must be obeyed, was the first distinct idea which waked him from
his reverie, and he hastened to the place by which he had entered the
pavilion. To pass under the canvas in the manner he had entered required
time and attention, and he made a readier aperture by slitting the
canvas wall with his poniard. When in the free air, he felt rather
stupefied and overpowered by a conflict of sensations, than able to
ascertain what was the real import of the whole. He was obliged to spur
himself to action by recollecting that the commands of the Lady Edith
had required haste. Even then, engaged as he was amongst tent-ropes and
tents, he was compelled to move with caution until he should regain
the path or avenue, aside from which the dwarf had led him, in order to
esca