Thaddeus had found no repose on his restless pillow. Reluctant to disturb the doctor and Somerset, who, he hoped, having less cause for regret, were sleeping tranquilly, he remained in bed; but he longed for morning. To his fevered nerves, any change of position, with movement, seemed better than where he was, and with some gleams of pleasure he watched the dawn, and the rising of the son behind the opposite hill. He got up, opened the window to inhale the air, and looking out, saw a man throw himself off a horse, which was all in foam, and enter the house.
Surprised at this circumstance, he descended to the parlor to make inquiry, and met the man in the hall, who, being Pembroke's messenger, had returned express from the Castle, bearing an order from Sir Robert (who was taken alarmingly ill) that his son must come back immediately.
Dismayed with this new distress, Mr. Somerset, on its instant information, pressed the count so closely to his breast when he bade him farewell, that a more suspicious person might have apprehended it was a final parting; but Thaddeus discerned nothing more in the anguish of his friend's countenance than fear for the safety of Sir Robert; and fervently wishing his recovery, he bade Pembroke remember that should more assistance be necessary, Dr. Cavendish would remain at the Abbey until Lady Albina's return to the Wolds.
Mr. Somerset being gone, towards noon, when the count was anxiously awaiting the appearance of the physician from the room of the new invalid, he was disappointed by the abrupt entrance of two gentlemen. He rose, and with his usual courtesy to strangers, inquired their business? The elder of the men, with a fierce countenance and a voice of thunder, announced himself to be the Earl of Tinemouth, and the other his son.
"We are come," said he, standing at a haughty distance—"we are come to carry from this nest of infamy Lady Albina Stanhope, whom some one of her mother's paramours—perhaps you, sir—dared to steal from her father's home yesterday evening. And I am come to give you, sir, who I guess to be some fugitive vagabond! the chastisement your audacity deserves."
With difficulty the Count Sobieski suppressed the passions which were rising in his breast. He turned a scornful glance on the person of Lord Harwold (who, with an air of insufferable derision, was coolly measuring his figure through an eyeglass); and then, replying to the earl, said, in a firm voice, "My lord, whoever you suppose me to be, it matters not; I now stand in the place of Lady Tinemouth's confidential friend, and to my last gasp I will prove myself the defender of he injured name."
"Her lover!" interrupted Lord Harwold, turning on his heel.
"Her defender, sir!" repeated Thaddeus, with a tremendous frown; "and shame and sorrow will pursue that son who requires a stranger to supply his duty."
"Wretch!" cried the earl, forgetting his assumed loftiness, and advancing passionately towards Thaddeus, with his stick held up; "how dare you address such language to an English nobleman?"
"By the right of nature, which holds her laws over all mankind," returned Thaddeus, calmly looking on the raised stick. "When an English nobleman forgets that he is a son, he deserves reproach from his meanest vassal."