"Nay," said the chaplain, "that is a question which I cannot answer. But sure I am, that if one spark of feeling yet lives in her heart, as I would fain believe, she must be visited with deep remorse as often as she looks back upon the ruin wrought by her girlish levity. May you, my dear Randolph, never know the pangs of affection unrequited, or requited only to be broken. And, if such sad lot be yours, may Heaven teach you to bear up against it, nor hide misery in the show of defiance."
"'Tis well for her," Randolph mused aloud, having scarcely heard Polydore's last words, "'tis very well for her, if indeed she loved. For so is no account between us. But if it be otherwise, if, out of wilfulness or vanity, she broke the heart that adored her, then let her look to her own. Not unscathed shall she go down to the grave. Does not the vow lie heavy on my soul?"
"Oh, Randolph, Randolph!" Polydore exclaimed; "what words are these?"
But the young man heeded him not, and, taking his arm, led him several times up and down the long gallery in silence, and at last drew him to one of the windows, from which they looked forth upon the sea. The white crests of the waves were still visible in the increasing darkness.
"Pardon me, Mr. Riches," Randolph said, "if I recall days that are gone, and which are recollected only with pain. But these are topics which have been forbidden, which I can no longer resist approaching, on which I must be informed. My father's marriage, my mother.... How came it about? How did she die? Strange tales have fallen upon my ears——"
The chaplain was much distressed. "What!" thought he, "will they not let poor Margaret rest even in her grave? Do they bear their foul scandal to her son? And is it for me to tell him the story of his father's fault?"
"Speak, Mr. Riches," said Randolph, with some impatience; "let me hear all the truth of the history."
"You know not what you ask," Polydore answered sadly. "Margaret Basset could not resist the influence which made her the seeming mistress of this castle. I could not approve—I went away. The marriage was strictly private. The people were very jealous. Some said—be patient—that it was not duly performed. I know that it was. I had some slight acquaintance with Mr. Ashton the clergyman; he was murdered shortly after the ceremony, and the witness disappeared. The rumours spread; but they died away when you were born. You can imagine the details."
"How did she die?" Randolph asked again.
"You know your father, Randolph," the chaplain replied. "Cannot you conceive the position was too much for her? And her kindred were imprudent. She pined away. But she was an angel. We all loved her. If the devotion of those around her could have made up for the affection which should hallow her situation, surely she were living now."