"Even so, Walter. You would not see her stretched upon the rack? would not see her exposed to tortures, such as, at no very distant period, the saints of our own church endured?—would not see her torn limb from limb by wild horses?"
"Heavens! Constantia, are you mad?" exclaimed Walter, terrified at her excited and distraught manner.
"I am not mad," she replied, in a changed and subdued tone; "but do not forget (and let it be on your knees) to thank God that my mother is dead; and that the cold clay presses the temples, which, if they were alive, would throb and burn as mine do now."
She pressed her hands on her brow; while the youth, appalled and astonished, gazed on her in silence.
"It is well thought on," she said, recovering her self-command much more quickly than he could have imagined possible. "I will give it you; it would be sinful to keep it after that dread to-morrow; even now, what do I with your gift?" She drew forth from her bosom the locket of which we have before spoken, and, looking on it fondly for a moment, thought, though not aloud, "Poor little fragment of the glittering sin that tempts mankind to their destruction! I heeded not your chasing nor your gems; but once (forgive it, God, forgive it!) thought far too much of him who gave it: I should have known better. I will not look on you again, lest you take root within the heart on which you have rested: though it was then in innocence, yet now it is a crime; there—" she held it towards him with a trembling hand. While her arm was thus extended, Burrell rushed from behind the covert of a wide-spreading laurel, and, with an action at once unmanly and insulting, snatched the trinket from her hand and flung it on the sward.
Magic itself could not have occasioned a greater change in the look, the manner, the entire appearance of the heiress of Cecil. She drew herself up to her full height, and instantly demanded, "How Sir Willmott Burrell dared to act thus in her presence?"
The Cavalier drew his sword from its sheath; Burrell was not backward in following the example. He returned Constantia's look of contempt with one of sarcasm—the peculiar glance that becomes so effective from under a half-closed lid—and then his eye glared like that of the hooded snake, while he replied,—
"Methought the lady in her chamber: the destined bride, during the day, keeps to her own apartment; 'tis the soft night that draws her forth to interchange love-pledges and soft sayings."
"Villain!" exclaimed De Guerre with startling energy, "hold thy blaspheming tongue, nor dare to imagine, much less express, aught of this lady that is not pure as heaven's own firmament!"
"Oh, my good sir," said the other, "I know you now! the braggart at my Lady Cecil's funeral—the pall-bearer—the church-yard lounger—the——!"