"Your fears are premature, my dear child;" cried the venerable man, as soon as she opened her eyes; "Lorenzo has just been in to tell me, your invalid guest is now recovering from the swoon in which you left him; and that the surgeons are in his chamber."
"Heaven has brought you my revered uncle!" cried she, "to sustain me. You will see him?"
"For that purpose," replied Mr. Athelstone, "I came."
Indeed, as soon as he received Louis's few lines, imparting his indispensable absence, and obligation to leave Cornelia to take charge of his invalid friend; the good Pastor judged, that whoever this nameless person might be, and for whatever reasons his reception at Morewick was to be generally concealed; yet it was his duty not to allow his niece to be with servants alone, in the distressing scene which the agitated letter of his nephew confessed might be anticipated during his absence. Notwithstanding all Louis's caution in his first communications respecting his foreign friend; and his subsequent reserve while continuing his apologies from the same cause, for his and Cornelia's detention at Morewick; Mr. Athelstone drew his own conclusions, that there was more unexplained, than the fantastic mystery of a foreigner wishing to travel incognito. He knew Louis's mind too well, to believe that he would adopt with such carefulness of concealment, so trifling a whim. He was convinced that danger to one party at least, hung over the discovery; and in his guesses, he was not very remote from the truth. The more his suspicions gained ground, from the style of his nephew's last letter, the more he saw the propriety of acting in defiance of Louis's positive request, that he would allow none of the Lindisfarne family to interrupt the charitable duties of Cornelia. The earnestness of this injunction; (for it was put, so as not to admit of a discussion;) confirmed Mr. Athelstone in an idea, that peril was attached to the entertainer of this mysterious personage; and resolving to protect his nephew and his niece in the possible dilemma into which humanity on one side, and romantic generosity on the other, might involve their safeties, he ordered a post chaise to await him on the opposite shore. Without imparting any thing of these reflections or motives to Mrs. Coningsby, he left his directions with her and Alice, to prepare every comfort for the expected reception of the Marchioness and her daughter. Busy in the hospitable bustle of such arrangements, the happy mother and her favourite child, saw Mr. Athelstone depart to rejoin Cornelia, without a suspicion of the nature of his errand. He alighted in the hall at Morewick, at the very moment Lorenzo had found Miss Coningsby lying insensible in the room of the stranger, who at the instant seemed beyond all future pain. She was brought into the next chamber, and delivered into the arms of her uncle; while Lorenzo recalled the medical assistants to his master's friend: and the result he communicated, as soon as the Duke breathed, to the benevolent inquiries of the Pastor.
When Cornelia had sufficiently recovered from her swoon to speak with composure, she related with brief eloquence, all that had passed between her and the invalid since his restored senses. Unconsciously to herself, her heart spoke; and she ended her communications by affirming, that notwithstanding his acknowledgement of errors, and the secrecy that involved him, she must believe him to be a man not less illustrious in the nobleness of his life, than in birth and station.
Mr. Athelstone listened attentively to all she had to say and to conjecture about the object of their discourse. She always distinguished him, by the approving and pitying appellation of the noble sufferer; and the penetration of her uncle, soon discovered, that his niece was no longer an impartial speaker.
"Cornelia," replied he, "I perceive you have no suspicion, who this noble sufferer may be?"
"None, my uncle."
"But I have. I recognise him in every word you have uttered, except his repentance; and that may be yet the salutation of Iscariot!"
"My uncle! what do you mean?" "I mean to speak of one," returned the Pastor, "whose heart was lifted up because of his beauty; and he corrupted his wisdom, by reason of his brightness; and where we should have found light, there was darkness, and the mouth of the grave!"