While she was thus employed, I, endeavouring to disguise my voice, as I had before done in the few sentences I had uttered, and addressing myself to Olivia, said, 'I should be exceedingly concerned, madam, if I thought you would suffer Mr. Mowbray to drive you home till day light shall appear.'

'I certainly shall not, sir;' answered she. 'But do you know my brother?'

'Madam!'

'You are acquainted with his name; and I don't recollect that it has been mentioned.'

I hesitated, Hector turned upon us, we were approaching the light, and, with a suddenness which fear and passion inspired, knowing that Mowbray did not understand Italian, I said in an under voice—'Il Signer Hugo Trevor non é morto, bellissima Signora; Mr. Trevor is not dead, dearest lady'—At the same instant I snatched her hand, pressed it, was about to raise it to my lips, but recollecting myself, turned short round, and added, 'Addio!'

Clarke was at my back; and I plucked him by the coat, and whispered—'Come with me.'

But what of Olivia? Was she dead to feeling at this strange mysterious moment? Did no rushing torrent of ideas suddenly overwhelm her? The man whose loss she had lamented not in his grave; that man again her saviour, her guardian genius in the dark hour of dread and danger; acquainted in a way the most extraordinary with her thoughts, and favourable wishes; or, as she was too severely inclined to term it, her passion and its folly; a witness that she did not credit all which malice could urge against him, nor listen in base silence when her perhaps too partial heart pleaded in his behalf; nay more, that man the protector of her aunt, by whom he had been so often and so bitterly reviled; that man travelling in obscurity; in familiar society with a carpenter, yet braving peril in her behalf, and shunning the thanks which the uncommon services he had rendered might boldly make him claim; avoiding them most certainly because of the mean condition to which he was reduced; faithful in his affection; for such his behaviour spoke him; but unfortunate, depressed, despised; sinking under poverty; languishing away his youth; or crushed by accumulating disasters!—Did no such fears, no such tender recollections, assail her bosom?—I have described her ill indeed if that could be supposed. I must pursue my narrative: for how can I picture what most indubitably must have passed in her heart, since I feel myself so very incapable of delineating my own!

This adventure did not entirely end here. I wished to have gone forward on foot to Hounslow without delay: but Clarke interceded, for a glass of brandy. He said the water had chilled him; and he was still more importunate with me to take the same preventative. I had no fear for myself; for I had no such feeling: but, as I did not think I had any right to trifle with his health, I returned with him; taking the precaution to go through the passage to the kitchen door.

Here, just as we came to the threshold, who should be coming in face of us, carrying a pair of candles, but my quondam servant, Philip!

The instant he beheld me, he turned pale, trembled, set down the lights, stood aghast for a moment, and then took to his heels.