That she should be loved to desperation could excite no wonder—but what had been the effects of this love? a distant home across the ocean—a home of privation and sorrow—the yearning for her lost children—the slow breaking of the contrite heart; a life dragged on despite the pangs of memory—or a nameless grave. Such were the conjectures caused by the letter of the American.
At length Neville returned. Each turned her eye on his face, to read the intelligence he had acquired in his speaking countenance. It was sad. "She lives and is lost," thought Lady Cecil; "He mourns her dead!" was the supposition of the single-minded Elizabeth. At first he avoided the subject of his inquiry, and his companions did not question him; till at last he suddenly exclaimed, "Do you not wish to learn something, Sophia? Have you forgotten the object of my journey?"
"Dear Gerard," replied Lady Cecil, "these walls and woods, had they a voice, could tell you that we have thought and spoken of nothing else."
"She is dead!" he answered, abruptly.
A start—an exclamation was the reply. He continued: "If there be any truth in the tale I have heard, my dear, injured mother is dead; that is, if what I have heard concern her—mean anything, or is not a mere fabrication. You shall hear all by-and-by; I will relate all I have been told. It is a sad story if it be hers, if it be a true story at all."
These disjointed expressions raised the curiosity and interest of his auditors to their height. It was evening; instead of going on with his account, he passed into the adjoining room, opened the glass door, and stepped out into the open air. It was dark, scarcely could you see the dim outline of the woods—yet, far on the horizon where sky and sea met, there was a streak of light. Sophia and Elizabeth followed to the room whence he had gone, and drew their chairs near the open window and pressed each other's hands.
"What can it all mean?" at length said Lady Cecil.
"Hush!" whispered Elizabeth—"he is here, I saw him cross the streak of light."
"True," said Gerard's voice—his person they could not distinguish, for they were in darkness; "I am here, and I will tell you now all I have heard. I will sit at your feet; give me your hand, Sophy, that I may feel that you are really present—it is too dark to see anything."
He did not ask for Elizabeth's hand, but he took it, and placing it on Lady Cecil's, gently clasped both: "I cannot see either of you—but indulge my wayward humour; so much of coarse and commonplace has been thrown on the most sacred subject in the world, that I want to bathe my soul in darkness—a darkness as profound as that which wraps my mother's fate. Now for my story."