But Mr. Lyon did not attend his cousin to the picture gallery that afternoon. Anna pleaded excessive fatigue, and with good reason, and kept her room until evening, when she went, attended by Alexander, to a reception at the Executive Mansion, that was the last and greatest of the season.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A MEMORABLE NIGHT.
’Tis only the obscure is terrible;
Imagination frames events unknown,
In wild fantastic shapes of hideous ruin,
And what it fears, creates.—Hannah More.
It was two hours after midnight, on a keen March morning, when Alexander Lyon, in the face of a fierce northwest wind, rode on towards his almost forsaken home.
His frame of mind was not enviable.
Never since he had entered upon his life of deception had his double-dealing so much disturbed him. The discovery of his duplicity was now impending. His uncle had proposed his immediate marriage with his betrothed; and should the obstinate old gentleman persist in pushing on the project, and should Anna raise no objection to it, there would be no other course for Alexander to pursue but frankly to confess his secret marriage with Drusilla, and so brave the old soldier’s roused wrath, and bear the young beauty’s bitter scorn.
Yet, still Mr. Lyon resolved to delay the degradation of such a disclosure, and the shame of such a scene as long as possible, for still he hoped, “out of this nettle danger to pluck the flower safety.”