Helena’s own grief was too new, however, to endure listening to further details; she stole from the room, and ran for comfort and quiet to the stables, where in Harkaway’s stall she could cry unmolested, finding some comfort in leaning her aching head on the neck of the horse which Gabriel had ridden when he had gallantly tried to rescue her father.
It seemed to her that all the great and good were dying; her own father, Hampden the patriot, Lord Brooke and a host of others within the last few months—and now the noble-hearted Falkland, with whom only the day before she had received the sacrament. Who in that generation would rise to fill the terrible gaps which this great struggle betwixt opposing principles had caused?
CHAPTER XXIII.
I cannot mount to Heaven beneath this ban,
Can Christian hope survive so far below
The level of the happiness of man?
Can angels’ wings in these dark waters grow?
A spirit voice replied, “From bearing right