Georgiana gazed upon him in astonishment—in profound astonishment; and she was softened towards that bold and desperate man who wept on her account!
"But wherefore have you sought me this evening?" she said, in a milder and more gentle tone than she had yet used during this remarkable—this solemnly interesting meeting.
"It is not to demand your pardon, madam," returned Rainford, dashing away the tears from his manly countenance; "because that you can never give! It is not to assert any presumed right to dictate to you in respect to your marriage, because that were adding the most flagrant cruelty to the most atrocious wrong. But it is to inform your ladyship that if you contract this marriage with the Earl of Ellingham, you wed one who is——"
"Who is what?" gasped Georgiana, almost suffocating.
Rainford paused for a few moments: it required these few moments to enable him to conquer emotions of so terrible a nature that they almost choked his powers of utterance:—then, bending down until his very lips touched Georgiana's ear, and his hair mingled with hers, he whispered a few words in a faint and scarcely audible tone.
But she heard them plainly—oh! far too plainly: and when he withdrew his face from its proximity to her head, and glanced upon her countenance, he saw, with feelings awfully shocked, that she sate mute—motionless—the image of despair.
Alas! she spoke not—she looked neither to the right nor to the left: her eyes seemed to be fixed upon the face of the highwayman;—and yet she saw him not—she was gazing on vacancy.
This dreadful state of stupefaction—the paralysis of despair—lasted for upwards of three minutes,—a perfect age alike to her who endured, and to him who beheld it.
Then suddenly burst from Lady Hatfield's lips a long—loud—piercing scream,—a scream so appalling that the very house appeared to shake with the vibration of the air which was cut by that shriek as by a keen-edged sword.
"Merciful God! the whole place will be alarmed!" ejaculated the highwayman. "Compose yourself, madam——"