"To whom?"
"To my husband?"
Though anticipating the reply, the words went like an arrow to his heart. We will not describe the separation. With unusual speed he descended the path towards the village. He rushed past the cleft with averted looks, fearful that he might be tempted to leap the gulf. He entered the tavern; but so changed in manner and appearance that his companions, fearful that his senses were disordered, earnestly besought him to take some rest and refreshment.
In the end he was persuaded to retire to bed. But ere long fever and delirium had seized him; and in the morning he was pronounced by a medical attendant to be in extreme danger, requiring the interposition of rest and skill to effect his cure.
It was in the cold and heavy mist of a December evening that a female was seated upon the tall cliff above the chasm we have described. As the solitary gull came wheeling around her, she spoke to it with great eagerness and gesticulation.
"Leave me—leave me!" she cried. "I must not now. Poor wanderer! art thou gone?" With an expression of the deepest bitterness and disappointment, she continued, "Why, oh, why didst thou take back thy pledge? Nay, it is here still; but—alas! 'tis broken. Broken!" and a scream so wild and pitiful escaped her, it was like the last agony of the spirit when riven from its shrine. Her hair wet with the drizzly atmosphere hung about her face. She suddenly threw it aside, as if listening.
"'Tis he! Again he comes. My—no, no; he was my lover! I have none now. I have a husband; but—he is unkind. Alas! why am I thus? I feel it! O merciful Heaven! my brain leaps; but I am not—indeed I am not mad!"
Saying this, she bounded down the cliff into the path she had left, with surprising swiftness. Returning, she was met by her husband, with two servants, who were in search. He chid her harshly—brutally. He threatened—ay, he threatened restraint. She heard this; but he saw not the deep and inflexible purpose she had formed. Horror at the apprehension of confinement, which, in calmer intervals, she dreaded worse than death, prompted her to use every artifice to aid her escape. She was now calm and obedient, murmuring not at the temporary attendance to which she was subjected. She sought not the cliff and the deep chasm; but would sit for hours upon the shore, looking over the calm sea, with a look as calm and as deceitful.
Vigilance became relaxed; apprehension was lulled; she was again left to herself, and again she stole towards the cliff. Like to some guilty thing, she crept onward, often looking back lest she should be observed. Having attired herself with more than ordinary care, before leaving her chamber she unlocked an ivory casket with great caution, taking thence a ring, which she carefully disposed on her forefinger. She looked with so intense a gaze upon this pledge—for it was the pledge of Mortimer—that she seemed to be watching its capricious glance, like the eye of destiny, as if her fate were revealed in its beautiful and mystic light.