Why flames the far summit? why shoot to the blast,
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyrie, that beacons the darkness of Heaven.
Oh crested Lochrel! the peerless in might,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling, all lonely, return,
For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood.
CAMPBELL.
It was with a numbed and dreary sense of bruised and outraged feeling that Mary—the last fibre of mistaken partiality torn from her heart—the last atom of her false idol crumbled into dust, lay down upon her bed that night.
She had lain there perhaps an hour, when the loud ringing of the hall-door aroused her from the state of dreamy stupor which was stealing over her.
Her first supposition was that her cousin Louis had returned. Then the hasty-ascending footstep of the servant, the quick knocking at the door of Mrs. de Burgh's dressing-room, from which the chamber appointed for Mary was not far removed; the hasty communication then given, the loud and agitated voice of Eugene in reply, his impetuous rush down stairs and from the house—as the banging of the hall-door made her aware—led her rather to conclude that some intelligence of peculiar importance, perhaps relating to the illness of old Mr. Trevor, had been received from Montrevor.
The next moment Mrs. de Burgh's bell rang violently, and very soon after her maid entered Mary's apartment, begging Miss Seaham to go immediately to Mrs. de Burgh.
Montrevor was on fire! Mr. Eugene Trevor had been sent for. Mrs. de Burgh was greatly agitated.