At the turning of a little wooded knoll, the mute and pensive pair heard the sound of some one on the other side, approaching them through the dry leaves. In a minute after Sir Robert Somerset appeared.
Whilst his father advanced smiling towards him, Thaddeus attempted to dispel the gloom of his countenance, but not succeeding, he bowed abruptly to the agitated Mary, and hastily said, "I will leave Miss Beaufort in your protection, sir, and go myself to see whether Lady Albina be recovered from her fatigue."
"I thought to find you all together," returned Sir Robert; "where is her ladyship?"
"I left her with Pembroke, in a hut by the river," said Thaddeus, and bowing again, he hurried away, whilst his father called after him to return in a few minutes, and accompany him in a walk.
The departure of Sobieski, when he had come expressly to attend her to Lady Albina, nearly overwhelmed Miss Beaufort's before exhausted spirits. Hardly knowing whether to remain or retreat, she was attempting the latter, when her guardian caught her hand.
"Stay, Mary!" cried he; "you surely would not leave me alone?"
Miss Beaufort's tears had gushed over her eyes the moment her back was turned, and as Sir Robert drew her towards him, to his extreme amazement he saw that she was weeping. At a sight so unexpected, the smile of hilarity left his lips. Putting his arm tenderly round her waist, (for now that her distress had discovered itself, her emotion became so great that she could hardly stand,) he inquired in a kindly manner what had affected her.
She answered by sobs only, until finding it impossible to break away from her uncle's arms, she hid her face in his bosom and gave vent to the full tide of her tears.
Recollecting the strange haste in which Thaddeus had hurried from them, and remembering Miss Beaufort's generosity to him in town, followed by her succeeding melancholy, Sir Robert at once united these circumstances with her present confusion, and conceiving an instantaneous suspicion of the reality, pressed her with redoubled affection to his bosom.
"I fear, my dearest girl," said he, "that something disagreeable has happened between you and the Count Sobieski. Perhaps he has offended you? perhaps he has found my sweet Mary too amiable?"