"What of her? what of her?" demanded the gipsy eagerly: "but I guess! I guess!"
"It is easy for you to imagine what she must feel," said Manners. "She has been, as probably you know, engaged to her cousin De Vaux for several years, and they have loved each other through life. Their affection has grown up with them from childhood, and has been strengthened by every tie, till at length their marriage, which was appointed to take place in a few weeks, was to have united them for ever. Judge, then--judge what must be her feelings now; but I will not attempt to tell you what those feelings are--I will only tell you in what situation she now is, and leave you to judge for yourself. This very evening, the medical man who is attending her, assured me that the anxiety and apprehension which she has suffered on account of her cousin, have already seriously impaired her health; and that great fears, even for her life itself, are to be entertained, if this state of mental agony is not soon put an end to by certainty of some kind."
"That alters the whole," cried the gipsy--"that alters the whole! But let me think a moment--let me think!"
"Yes!" said Manners; "think of it,--and think well!--think what must be the feelings of a young and affectionate heart, which, early deprived of the sweet relationships of parent and child, had fixed all its best and warmest affections upon one who well deserved its love,--had concentrated upon him alone all those feelings of tenderness and regard which are generally divided among a thousand other objects; and which had so lately seen him return from scenes of danger and strife to peace and quietness, and, as all fancied, to love and domestic happiness;--think what must be the feelings of such a heart, when the object of all her thoughts and hopes is suddenly and strangely torn from her--when every trace of him is lost, but such as naturally and strongly lead the mind to conclude that death of a bloody and violent nature is the cause of his prolonged and extraordinary absence.--Think--think well what must be the feelings of Miss De Vaux, his promised bride--think what must be my feelings, as his companion and friend; and, if your heart be other than of stone, sure I am that you will instantly afford the means--if you possess them--of removing all these cruel doubts and fears, and relieving our anxiety, at least by certainty of our friend's fate."
"You need say no more!" said the gipsy--"you need say no more! I will remove your fears upon easy conditions.--I had not foreseen all this. Like a fool, I had not remembered that events, which seemed to me all simple and clear, because I was an actor in them and saw them all, would produce such anxiety and fear to those who saw no more than the result; but I have been moved by many another feeling, and occupied by many another event. I have seen men bring ruin on their own heads and mine, by following their own wilful follies rather than my counsel and command; and I have seen a thoughtless and innocent boy entrapped into becoming the sacrifice for the guilty and the obstinate. I have been called upon to punish the offenders, and to endeavour to rescue the innocent; and I have been hunted through this livelong day like a wild beast;--so that I may well have forgot that circumstances, very simple in themselves, might fill others that knew not all, with strange fears and suspicions; but besides that--besides that--I had other motives for not telling what I knew.--Those motives are now shaken by stronger ones; and for the sake of Marian de Vaux, I will say what I would not have said for the sake of my own life; but it must be on certain conditions."
"Name them," said Manners; "and if they be not very hard to fulfil, doubt not that I will undertake them."
The gipsy paused, and thought for several minutes, and he then replied, "I will, as I have said, put you in the way of finding your friend, Edward de Vaux; and you will find him--if not well--at least in kindly hands. But now mark me. The person with whom he is has lately come over from America with private views and purposes of his own, yet doubtful and unresolved whether he will proceed with them or not. Were his residence in England known to any one, it might force him either to execute the designs with which he came sooner than he intended, or perhaps prevent him from changing those designs, though other circumstances may render such a change necessary; or still further--"
"In short," said Manners, "he is desirous of remaining concealed; and, as far as I know, has every right to do so, without my inquiring at all into his motives. But you forget, my good friend, that there is as little chance of my knowing this person of whom you speak, as of my betraying him if I did."
"You are wrong," said the gipsy; "there is every chance of your knowing him; you have seen him I know, and esteem him I am sure; and, what I have to require is this, if, by my means, you find Edward de Vaux, and recognise the person now kindly tending him, you shall not, upon any pretence, or to any person whatsoever, reveal his real name and character. You shall recognise him merely as the person that he chooses to call himself, and speak of him as none other."
"Of course! of course!" answered Manners; "he shall keep the incognito, for anything that I may do to the contrary, as long and as strictly as he likes."