‘Indeed I hear it for the first time in my life,’ answered Darsie.
‘And you knew not that I was your sister?’ said Lilias. ‘No wonder you received me so coldly. What a strange, wild, forward young person you must have thought me—mixing myself in the fortunes of a stranger whom I had only once spoken to—corresponding with him by signs—Good Heaven! what can you have supposed me?’
‘And how should I have come to the knowledge of our connexion?’ said Darsie. ‘You are aware I was not acquainted with it when we danced together at Brokenburn.’
‘I saw that with concern, and fain I would have warned you,’ answered Lilias; ‘but I was closely watched, and before I could find or make an opportunity of coming to a full explanation with you on a subject so agitating, I was forced to leave the room. What I did say was, you may remember, a caution to leave the southern border, for I foresaw what has since happened. But since my uncle has had you in his power, I never doubted he had communicated to you our whole family history.’
‘He has left me to learn it from you, Lilias; and assure yourself that I will hear it with more pleasure from your lips than from his. I have no reason to be pleased with his conduct towards me.’
‘Of that,’ said Lilias, ‘you will judge better when you have heard what I have to tell you;’ and she began her communication in the following manner.
CHAPTER XVIII
NARRATIVE OF DARSIE LATIMER, CONTINUED
‘The House of Redgauntlet,’ said the young lady, ‘has for centuries been supposed to lie under a doom, which has rendered vain their courage, their talents, their ambition, and their wisdom. Often making a figure in history, they have been ever in the situation of men striving against both wind and tide, who distinguish themselves by their desperate exertions of strength, and their persevering endurance of toil, but without being able to advance themselves upon their course by either vigour or resolution. They pretend to trace this fatality to a legendary history, which I may tell you at a less busy moment.’