"Oh, my Lady, don't pity him," cried Bayfield: "but are you sure he has no pistols about him? It was a pistol you know, my Lady——, but I forget myself: one word, Madam, if you please." She drew Ellen aside and said—"Your Ladyship will not wonder at my alarm, when I tell you the man you were talking with was the very person my Lord has sought in vain so long; it was that wretch De Sylva! Oh, I remember the glance of his dark malicious eye: it has never left my remembrance since the evening I by accident met him with my late Lady walking in the Cork Grove, three or four days before her death, when I did not know he was within many miles of the place; and starting at seeing them together, he gave me such a look; I never shall forget it: I thought he looked at me just the same on the beach, and I expected every moment when he would draw out a pistol and shoot some of us—perhaps the baby out of spite to my Lord, and that made me run away in that manner: oh, I was not myself, nor shall I be again this night. Oh that my Lord de Montfort was here to have all his cruel doubts put an end to for ever, for sure the villain will confess all now."
Ellen heard her with silent but tumultuous emotion, and hastened as much as possible towards the Parsonage, sending the men however to meet their lord.
The Parsonage being nearer to the beach than the Farm was, Ellen and her friends stopped there, and begged Mr. Griffiths would hasten back to St. Aubyn, and say where he would find her: she then requested Ross would go into his study with her, and there, knowing he was perfectly acquainted with the circumstances which had happened to St. Aubyn in Spain, she entreated his advice how to proceed, and that he would endeavour to calm the violent emotions which the discovery of De Sylva had excited in the bosom of St. Aubyn.
"Surely," said the pious Ross, "the hand of heaven is evident in this extraordinary event! The kind humanity which prompted Lord St. Aubyn to save the poor mariners in the storm, was not only the means by which the life of my son was preserved, and the grey hairs of his mother and myself prevented from going down with sorrow to the grave, but has also, I hope, procured for himself the satisfaction he most earnestly wished, by bringing De Sylva once more within his reach. Wonder-working Providence! from what apparently improbable causes does thy Almighty hand bring forth the most interesting events!"
As he spoke, a bustle was heard without, and St. Aubyn rushed into the room, pale, agitated, almost breathless. Charles Ross, Griffiths, and two or three sailors, followed, leading, or rather bearing the miserable De Sylva: miserable indeed was his whole appearance: his Turkish turban had been torn from his head, and his long black hair streamed round his face in wild disorder. That face which St. Aubyn remembered a few years before glowing with animation and manly beauty, was now pale, haggard, and displayed marks of premature old age.—Those eyes, once so full of life and gaiety, now rolled in horrible dismay; and that form, so agile, so graceful when with the unfortunate Rosolia he led the sprightly dance, was now bowed by sickness, and shrunk by fear.—Oh, what havock does guilt make in the human face and figure! such as he stood, with looks that terrified each beholder. De Sylva was then but little more than thirty years of age, yet the vigour of his constitution, exhausted by excess, his soul a prey to every agony which racks the criminal—his course was run; the grave opened to receive him, and a few short days it was evident must terminate his life and sins together.
"Retire, my love," said St. Aubyn to his trembling wife: "this is no place for you: you know I perceive who this wretched being is: this cross, which he offered to you, was that which the ill-fated Rosolia wore the very evening she went to meet this villain in the Hermitage: see here my cypher upon this plate of gold, for this, with the rich necklace from which it depended, was my gift.—Go, my love: the story which this wretched man has engaged to tell is unfitted for your tender sensibility to partake of."
Ellen instantly and gladly obeyed, and the sailors also were sent away, for the unhappy man, faint and exhausted, was too ill to make any attempt at escaping, nor could he speak till some restoratives had been administered.
During this pause, Ross suggested to St. Aubyn the propriety of having some person present to receive De Sylva's confession who was able to take it exactly as delivered, of which St. Aubyn, who alone was sufficiently master of the French language to do so, was rendered incapable by his extreme agitation; besides, it occurred to Ross, that this person should be totally unconnected with Lord St. Aubyn, that his testimony might be totally free and uninfluenced.
St. Aubyn perfectly agreed with him, but was at a loss on whom to fix, when suddenly Ross recollected the Catholic priest, who was at that moment actually in the house, and whom St. Aubyn had never seen.
This respectable old man was accordingly summoned, and St. Aubyn in a few words explained to him the nature of the service required of him; and he readily agreed to take, and witness, the deposition of De Sylva.