The old earl had suffered terribly when the tempest and the night had come, and his darling was known to be absent in the forest, or on the wild crag; but when the swift messenger had brought him the glad intelligence of her safety, his fears departed; and when he had finally held her in his arms, and had then held her off that he might gaze into her beautiful face and know that all was well with her, then his joy was great indeed.
When it was all so happily over he was almost thankful it had happened, for it had told him over again how dearly he loved her and what a treasure she was to him!
On this morning the girl put on her hat, with a light mantle over her shoulders, thinking to take a walk in her garden before breakfast. The air was fresh and pure after the storm and not at all chilly, and the autumnal flowers were in full bloom.
She had reached the place—an inclosure within the outer walls of the castle—and was slowly and thoughtfully walking in one of the graveled paths, when she was startled by the sound of a quick, heavy footfall behind her, and on turning she found herself face to face with Matthew Brandon—by courtesy Lord Oakleigh.
He was not a pleasant man to look at, and yet many might have called him good looking—perhaps handsome. If he had any beauty it was of the Mephistophelean order. He was tall and strong, and dressed in a costly garb of embroidered velvet and satin.
He wore a large diamond in his shirt-front, he had fine rings on two or three fingers, and his gold watch-chain was conspicuous.
His complexion was dark, even to swarthiness; his hair black and quite short, with a pair of eyes now, as in his boyhood, set very near together and deeply sunken in their sockets.
He had a good nose but his lips were heavy and sensual, his mouth large, and his lower jaw broad and strong. He wore no beard, but his cheeks and his chin and his upper lip, where the razor did its work, betrayed the possibility of a beard, black and luxuriant, had he been willing to let it grow.
A friend had once asked him how it was that, with such a chance for a beard, he could be content to sacrifice it.
“Oh!” he had answered with a laugh, “I am black enough as it is; should I add a coal-black beard, I should be blackness incarnate.”