"Then you will stand as precariously as my old uncle Doncaster, toiling up the bank there, whose legs look so thin, that I often wonder he has courage to venture upon them at all. He is most unfit to come up hill, when actually going down the hill of life so very fast, that he might as well be setting his worldly affairs in order."
"Worldly affairs! He has no other affairs, I suppose," replied Agnes, with a supercilious smile on her haughty lip. "And I think Lord Doncaster will be able to manage his own affairs for many years to come! He intends to live as long as Great Britain is an island. Nobody is old, till he feels old!"
Captain De Crespigny looked at Agnes with a penetrating air of astonishment, which gradually changed to an expression of satirical indifference, while he added, "This is an odd world, Miss Dunbar!"
"So it is! When did that idea first occur to you? It seems so very new!" replied Agnes, in a tone of biting satire. "Patrick has often told me that the De Crespignys are reckoned a sagacious family; and perhaps, after so bright a remark, you may turn out by no means the sort of every-day person people expected."
"Probably not! I shall, perhaps, be like Cimon, awakened from stupidity by the charms of a second Iphigenia," said Captain De Crespigny, with an air as if he had surpassed himself; but the smile with which Agnes listened to this characteristic reply was cold and transient as a gleam of sunshine on a frozen lake; yet while her features remained immoveable as those of a beautiful statue, a strange, unnatural fire sparkled in her splendid eyes, and with a look of withering indignation she turned haughtily away to address Lord Doncaster; while Captain De Crespigny, humming the last opera tune, and switching with his cane the heads off all the flowers along his path, quickened his pace, and resumed his not very welcome assiduities to Marion, who felt insufferably annoyed at being obliged always to hear the same nonsense talked, and to play her part in what she considered a mere hack flirtation on the part of Captain De Crespigny; while she greatly wondered that he had not long since tired of always, in her company, drawing up an empty bucket.
Sir Patrick was preparing to follow, when he observed the young sketcher hastily adding a last touch to her beautiful drawing; and before she could assemble all her scattered implements and materials, which he had assisted her to do, the whole joyous party had nearly vanished out of sight; while the young Baronet's eyes flashed with amazement, on giving a clandestine glance into the sketch-book, to find there an extremely clever caricature of Captain De Crespigny, as he stood a few minutes before, endeavoring to divide his attentions among the whole group of ladies. On examining another leaf, he found, to his yet greater surprise, a beautiful likeness of Clara Granville; and turning instantly to his young companion, with sudden emotion, he entreated permission to have it copied. While he was yet speaking, the young lady, with crimsoned cheeks, though a lurking smile played about her mouth, continued hastily to follow the guide, tracing his footsteps with an accuracy worthy of a Mohican, impatient, evidently, to overtake their companions, as she hastily threaded her way through the forest glades, and beneath the arching branches of many a lofty tree, towards a dark, gloomy-looking plantation, to which their guide seemed now impatiently hurrying them. He was dressed in a smock frock, and had become singularly silent, his replies being all so short and so grudgingly given, that Sir Patrick had angrily yielded up the point, determined to give the man nothing, and not to ask him another question, when suddenly his arm was tremblingly grasped by the young lady beside him; while in a low, strange, unearthly whisper, and with a look of mortal terror, she said, "I do not like this! What can it mean? Has he escaped from confinement? Are you sure that man is our guide?"
"I scarcely looked, but of course he is! It can be no one else!" replied Sir Patrick, in a soothing tone; for he thought she must certainly be deranged. "There he waits for us! We shall overtake our friends immediately."
"Look at this tree!—pretend to be admiring the landscape!" continued the young lady, in a deep, concentrated voice; "but tell me,—can we make our escape unobserved by that man? My life, probably, depends upon your answer!"
Sir Patrick now became confirmed in his opinion respecting the insanity of his young companion, and fixing his eyes on her countenance, he perceived with amazement that every tinge of color had been drained from her cheek—that her lip quivered with fright, and that terror spoke in her eyes, and trembled in every limb; while her words poured out with a rushing vehemence of tone and manner which startled and alarmed him.
"I caught a momentary glance of his countenance! Where could I ever see these eyes and be mistaken? There is madness yet in their expression. He has sworn to destroy me. The whole purpose of his being is revenge!"