"Let us try, at all events," exclaimed Lord H----, turning his horse's head; "we can but come back again, if we find the heat and smoke too much for us."
"My daughter!" ejaculated Mr. Prevost, in a tone of deep, strong feeling; "my daughter, Lord H----!"
The young nobleman was silent. The stories he had heard that day, and many that he had heard before, of persons getting entangled in burning forests, and never being able to escape--which, while, in the first enthusiasm of the moment, he thought only of himself and of Mr. Prevost, had seemed to him but visions, wild chimeras--assumed a terrible reality, as soon as the name of Edith was mentioned; and he would have shuddered to see the proposal adopted, which he had made only the moment before. He was silent, then; and Mr. Prevost was the first who spoke.
"I must go," he said, with gloomy earnestness, after some brief consideration--"I must go, let what will betide."
He relapsed into silence again, and there was a terrible struggle within his bosom, which the reader cannot, even in part, comprehend, without having withdrawn for him that dark curtain which shades the inmost secrets of the heart from the cold eyes of the unobservant world. He had to choose whether he would risk the sacrifice of many things dearer to him than life itself, or go through that fiery gulf before him--whether he would take that daughter, far dearer than life, with him, exposing her to all the peril that he feared not for himself, the scorching flame, the suffocating smoke, the falling timber--or whether he should leave her behind him, to find her way in darkness, and through a forest perhaps tenanted by enemies, to a small farmhouse, seven or eight miles off, where resided some kind and friendly people, who would give her care and good attendance. Then came the question--for the former was soon decided--whom he should leave with her. Some one was needed with himself, for, in the many, many perils that environed his short path, he could hardly hope to force his way alone, unaided. Lord H---- might have been his most serviceable companion in one view; for his courage, his boldness, his habits of prompt decision, and his clearness of observation, were already well and publicly known.
But then, to leave Edith alone in that dark night, in that wild wood, with nothing but a negro for her guide; a man shrewd and clear-witted, keen and active enough, yet with few moral checks upon his passions, few restraints of education or honour, and still fewer of religion and the fear of God. It was not to be thought of. In Lord H---- he felt certain he could trust. He knew that, in scenes as dangerous to the spirit as any he could go through would be to the body, he had come out unfallen, unwounded, untouched. He had the reputation and the bearing of a man of honour and a gentleman; and Mr. Prevost felt that the man must be base, indeed--low, degraded, vile, who, with such a trust as Edith on his conscience, could waver even in thought.
Such considerations pressed upon him heavily--they could not be disposed of by rapid decision; and he remained for two or three minutes profoundly silent. Then, turning suddenly to Lord H----, he said,--
"My lord, I am going to entrust to you the dearest thing I have on earth, my daughter--to place her under the safeguard of your honour--to rely for her protection and defence upon your chivalry. As an English nobleman, of high name and fame, I do trust you without a doubt. I must make my way through that fire by some means--I must save some papers, and two pictures, which I value more than my own life. I will take my good friend Chando here with me. I must leave you to conduct Edith to a place of safety."
"Oh, my father!" cried Edith; but he continued to speak without heeding her.
"If you follow that road," he continued, pointing to the one which led southward, "you will come, at the distance of about seven miles, to a good-sized farmhouse on the left of the road. Edith knows it, and can show you the way up to it. The men are most likely out, watching the progress of the fire; but you will find the women within; and good and friendly they are, though homely and uneducated. I have no time to stop for further directions. Edith, my child, God bless you! Do not cloud our parting with a doubt of Heaven's protection. Should anything occur--and be it as He wills--you and Walter will find at the lawyer's at Albany all papers referring to this small farm, and to the little we still have in England. God bless you, my child, God bless you!"