"Yon sport, my child, with these gloomy suggestions; and may you ever have the same cause for smiling at the advance of death! I know the passion of your soul is to be always in the path of duty; and that in such pursuit, the rugged and the smooth, the safe or dangerous, are to you alike. Nourish this principle as that of your part in the covenant of your salvation. But keep a clear eye in discerning between duty and inclination. Remember, that no enterprize is great that is not morally good: that war is murder, when it commences in aggression; and that policy is villainy, when it seeks to aggrandize by injustice. In short, in whatever you do, consider the aim of your action, and your motive in undertaking its accomplishment. Be single-minded in all things, having the principle of the divine laws, delivered by the Son of God himself, as the living spring of every action throughout your life. Then, my Louis, you may smile in life and in death! You will be above the breath of man, beyond his power to disappoint you in your reward; for it will abide with you in the consciousness of virtue, and a sure faith in an eternal glory."
While the Pastor was yet speaking, Mrs. Coningsby and her daughters entered from a Christmas visit they had been paying in the neighbouring town of Warkworth. They started at sight of a stranger dozing in the great chair by the fire. Overcome with fatigue, Castanos had fallen asleep almost immediately after he had given his last unsatisfactory reply. The entrance of the ladies roused him, and he got up heavily from his seat, when Mr. Athelstone presented him to his niece, and briefly told his errand. Surprize at the suddenness of the summons, and dismay at parting with a companion so dear, overcame Mrs. Coningsby, and she sunk fainting into a chair. Tears stole down the cheeks of Cornelia, and Alice stood motionless, pale, and silent.
After the emotions of the shock of such intelligence had a little subsided; anxious to divert their thoughts, Mr. Athelstone presented his niece and her daughters with Don Ferdinand's three packets; and repeating the young Spaniard's request that each lady would inspect her present alone, he added his own wish, that they would indulge the donor now. The hint was immediately adopted, for Mrs. Coningsby understood its purport. Divining her uncle's tenderness for the sensibility of his nieces, she left him to discuss with Louis the many arrangements necessary to a separation, that might be final to most of the party.
The remainder of the day was hardly long enough, for the preparation of the various comforts each inmate of the hall was solicitous to produce, to render the journey and voyage of their beloved Louis as free of privations as possible. In the consequent bustle, no time was allowed for dwelling on its occasion, or giving way to the regrets which often turned the heart faint in the midst of the body's exertions. "To-morrow, in the hour of parting, we will indulge our sorrow. We will then shew our Louis our love, and our grief at the separation!" With these thoughts, Mrs. Coningsby and Cornelia stilled their often-rising emotions; while Mr. Athelstone, reading in the feverish activity of their services what was passing in their minds, meditated how to spare them and his nephew the agitating hour they anticipated.
When the family parted for the night, it was settled that Louis and his foreign conductor should not leave the hall the next morning until after breakfast; and therefore they should all meet again round that dear domestic table, and there exchange the dreaded word farewell. Mrs. Coningsby observed, that before she slept she was going to write a few lines to Don Ferdinand, to thank him for the fine Moorish shawls his gratitude had presented to herself and daughters, and she would give the letter to Louis in the morning. Then, as was the custom in this affectionate family, on retiring to their rooms, he touched the cheek of his aunt with his lips, and shook hands with his cousins when he bade God bless them!
With a body unwearied, and a mind too excited, to admit of any sleep this night, he was passing to his apartment, when his uncle opened the door of his own chamber, and beckoned him in. The venerable man, there informed him, that he alone of all the family, would bid him farewell the next morning. That he feared the fortitude of Mrs. Coningsby and his nieces in so severe a trial; and had therefore made arrangements to prevent it. Louis listened with gratitude, though with brimming eyes, to the good old man's account of his having ordered the travelling-chaise to the lodge-gate at day-break; and that he had prepared Senor Castanos to be ready at so unexpected an hour, and to permit his charge to see his maternal uncle. In the usual routine of his movements, Sir Anthony had been some time at Athelstone-manor, where he always opened his Christmas hospitalities. As that mansion was on the banks of the Tyne, not far from Newcastle, where the travellers were to embark, his nephew would have an opportunity of paying his parting duty to him, without impeding his journey by going out of the way.
Louis left his kind guardian, with a promise of attending to the first tap at his door next morning; and in a more pensive mood proceeded to his dressing-room. On opening the door, he saw Alice seated by his table. Her lamp stood beside her; and its faint light gleamed upon her pallid features. He started with astonishment; for she had so long estranged herself from his slightest attentions, that Alice was the last person he could have expected to find at such a moment in his apartment. However, he approached her tenderly. On seeing him, she covered her face with her hand, and evidently wept, though silently; for as he spoke and soothed her, (though vaguely, as he could not guess the reason of this solitary visit,) he felt the tears trickle through her fingers on his hand. At last she was able to command her speech, though she still concealed her face; and when she did find utterance, it was some time before she dared touch upon the secret that preyed upon her peace and life. She told him that she was miserable; that her health was consuming under a sense of her deception to the best of mothers, sisters, and of guardians; and that unless she did seize this, her last opportunity of unburthening her soul to the only friend to whom she could do so, without breaking a fatal vow; she felt that she must die, she could not exist much longer under the tortures of her conscience, and the miseries of her heart.
Amazed, and alarmed, Louis listened to her, tried to calm her, and encouraged her to repose a full confidence in him. At length, amidst paroxysms of tears, and agonies of shame, she narrated all that had passed between herself and Don Ferdinand; and that since she had so rashly made him the vow of concealing their attachment from those who ought to know all her thoughts, she had never known a moment's happiness.
Louis was struck dumb with this recital. The brevity of her acquaintance with Don Ferdinand, might yet be long enough to allow his accomplished manners and interesting state, to make an impression on so young and sympathizing a heart; she therefore found a ready excuse with her cousin. But what was he to think of Don Ferdinand? Of the advantage he had taken of her tender and guileless nature, to betray her into a confession and a vow, so sure to sacrifice her peace; and which could bring no gratification to him, but the disgraceful consciousness of a triumph to his vanity!
Louis's fixed silence, while occupied in these thoughts, struck Alice like the voice of condemnation. She gazed distractedly in his face, and exclaimed in despair, "You think I am unpardonable.—You think I deserve to die, miserable and unforgiven! Oh, wretched, guilty Alice,—break, break your heart, for there is none to pity you!" As she uttered this, in a hardly articulate voice, she threw herself back into her chair, sobbing and wringing her hands in bitter anguish. The violence of her emotions recalled Louis to recollection, and soothing her excessive remorse with every palliative that affection could suggest, he at last succeeded in restoring her to some degree of composure. She told him, that her purpose in revealing her wretched story to him at this time, was not merely to unburthen her loaded soul; but to prevail on him to convey a letter to Ferdinand, in which she implored him to release her from her guilty vow of concealment. "I have warned him," continued she, "that if he hold me to this impious pledge, it will not be for long; for I cannot live in my present self-abhorring condition. But, should my life be lengthened under these circumstances, to be my punishment, I will never consent to see his face again, till he has released me from so sinful an engagement."