After a pause she continued—"But what will they all this while think of me at the castle? How shall my absence be accounted for? Why—why do I shudder thus in self-condemnation? This should not have been!"
Thus, in self-crimination, Adelaide vented her contrition, while with trembling fear and step she slowly wended back her wearied way to Tyrconnel Castle.
Still advancing, terror seemed every where to accompany her.
"Horror ubique——simul ipsa silentia terrent!"
The distant murmurs of the Eske uniting with the ocean affrighted her, as did her footsteps,—she thought them not her own; while ever and anon she would stop to listen; but no sounds were heard but those of the adjoining brook brawling[20] over its rocky channel, or the autumnal gale rustling the fallen foliage as it swept its plaintive blast along. At times when partially the wind reposed, and all, for the interval, was in silence lulled, still her mind was not at rest; occasionally she would stop, and seemed to meditate to herself; then would she rehearse the ominous incantation at the kiln, she would raise up her right arm, bend the hand, with thumb and fore-finger conjoined together; next suddenly dip the arm and hand, as when she plumbed the charmed ball adown the mystic concavity of the kiln. When having violently acted this, she would utter a piercing scream, and then awaken from her reverie.
As Adelaide was proceeding onward in her return to the castle, the sky suddenly became deeply darkened, and a thunder-storm arose; the thunder loudly re-echoed through the vaulted heavens, and the vivid lightning-flash preceded each awful peal; then descended torrents of rain, which fell with the plenitude and the force of a water-spout.
"Ah, if I had here a friend, a companion in this my hour of trial, I then would slightly value the tempest that now surrounds me! But the deed was all my own doing, and plaints now are of no avail. So unto the castle with whatever remnant of strength or courage may remain.—This is my only resource!"
All terrified, pale, and her garments deeply drenched with rain, at length Adelaide regained the castle; where, when she had put on fresh attire, forgetful of all the fears and perils which she had encountered, (such and so great are the contradictions of human nature,) that she fully, nevertheless, resolved to abide the full completion of the mysterious charm.
The awful thunder-storm served as a well-timed explanation for the deadly paleness of her countenance as the Lady Adelaide rejoined the social circle. The juvenile party were employed in the various pastimes of the night, in burning the boding nuts, while
"Some lovingly in flames consume, Till wasting into embers grey."