“Is the appointed place the Standing Stones, and the time daybreak?” again demanded Mordaunt.
“It is, and the time is come,” said Brenda,—“for Heaven’s sake let us depart!”
“I will myself,” said Mordaunt, “relieve the sentinel at the front door for a few minutes, and suffer you to pass.—You will not protract this interview, so full of danger?”
“We will not,” said Brenda; “and you, on your part, will not avail yourself of this unhappy man’s venturing hither, to harm or to seize him?”
“Rely on my honour,” said Mordaunt—“He shall have no harm, unless he offers any.”
“Then I go to call my sister,” said Brenda, and quickly left the apartment.
Mordaunt considered the matter for an instant, and then going to the sentinel at the front door, he desired him to run instantly to the main-guard, and order the whole to turn out with their arms—to see the order obeyed, and to return when they were in readiness. Meantime, he himself, he said, would remain upon the post.
During the interval of the sentinel’s absence, the front door was slowly opened, and Minna and Brenda appeared, muffled in their mantles. The former leaned on her sister, and kept her face bent on the ground, as one who felt ashamed of the step she was about to take. Brenda also passed her lover in silence, but threw back upon him a look of gratitude and affection, which doubled, if possible, his anxiety for their safety.
The sisters, in the meanwhile, passed out of sight of the house; when Minna, whose step, till that time, had been faint and feeble, began to erect her person, and to walk with a pace so firm and so swift, that Brenda, who had some difficulty to keep up with her, could not forbear remonstrating on the imprudence of hurrying her spirits, and exhausting her force, by such unnecessary haste.
“Fear not, my dearest sister,” said Minna; “the spirit which I now feel will, and must, sustain me through the dreadful interview. I could not but move with a drooping head, and dejected pace, while I was in view of one who must necessarily deem me deserving of his pity, or his scorn. But you know, my dearest Brenda, and Mordaunt shall also know, that the love I bore to that unhappy man, was as pure as the rays of that sun, that is now reflected on the waves. And I dare attest that glorious sun, and yonder blue heaven, to bear me witness, that, but to urge him to change his unhappy course of life, I had not, for all the temptations this round world holds, ever consented to see him more.”