"Oh, Aunt Hannah! she is gone; she is gone forever!"
"Who is gone, my boy?" asked Hannah sympathetically.
"Claudia! Claudia!" he wailed, covering his convulsed face with his hands.
"How, my ban upon Brudenell Hall and all connected with it!" exclaimed Hannah bitterly, as the hitherto unsuspected fact of Ishmael's fatal love flashed upon her mind; "my blackest ban upon Brudenell Hall and all its hateful race! It was built for the ruin of me and mine! I was a fool, a weak, wicked fool, ever to have allowed Ishmael to enter its unlucky doors! My curse upon them!"
The boy threw up his thin hand with a gesture of deprecation.
"Don't! don't! don't, Aunt Hannah! Every word you speak is a stab through my heart." And the sentence closed with a gasp and a sob, and he covered his face with his hands.
"What can I do for him?" said Hannah, appealing to Reuben.
"Nothing, my dear, but what you have done. Leave him alone to rest quietly. It is easy to see that he has been very much shaken both in body and hind; and perfect rest is the only thing as will help him," answered Gray.
Ishmael's hands covered his quivering face; but they saw that his bosom was heaving convulsively. He seemed to be struggling valiantly to regain composure. Presently, as if ashamed of having betrayed his weakness, he uncovered his face and said, in a faltering and interrupted voice:
"Dear Aunt Hannah, I am so sorry that I have disturbed you; excuse me; and let me lie here for half an hour to recover myself. I do not wish to be self-indulgent; but I am exhausted. I ran all the way from Brudenell Hall to Baymouth to get—to see—to see——-" His voice broke down with a sob, he covered his face with his hands, and shook as with an ague.