cret distrust of his friend lurked in any
corner of his heart; his fear was solely for Talbot's safety, and for
what he probably ranked as highly--the certainty of his keeping his
appointment with Frederick Travers; and what a world of conflicting
feelings were here! At one moment a sense of savage, unrelenting hatred
to the man who had grossly insulted himself, at the next a dreadful
thrill of agony that this same Travers might be the object of his
cousin's love, and that on _his_ fate, _her_ whole happiness in life
depended. Had the meeting been between himself and Travers--had the time
come round to settle that old score of insult that lay between them,
he thought that such feelings as these would have been merged in the
gratified sense of vengeance, but now, how should he look on, and see
him fall by another's pistol?--how see another expose his life in the
place he felt to be his own? He could not forgive Talbot for this, and
every painful thought the whole event suggested, embittered him against
his friend as the cause of his suffering. And yet, was it possible for
him ever himself to have challenged Travers? Did not the discovery of
Kate's secret, as he called it to her, on the road below the cliff, at
once and for ever, prevent such a catastrophe? Such were some of the
harassing reflections which distracted Mark's mind, and to which his own
wayward temper and natural excitability gave additional poignancy; while
jealousy, a passion that fed and ministered to his hate, lived through
every sentiment and tinctured every thought. Such had been his waking
and sleeping thoughts for many a day-thoughts which, though lurking,
like a slow poison, within him, had never become so palpable to his mind
before; his very patriotism, the attachment he thought he felt to his
native country, his ardent desire for liberty, his aspirations for
national greatness, all sprung from this one sentiment of hate to the
Saxon, and jealousy of the man who was his rival. Frederick Travers was
the embodiment of all those feelings he himself believed were enlisted
in the cause of his country.

As these reflections crowded on him, they suggested new sources of
suffering, and in the bewildered frame of mind to which he was now
reduced, there seemed no possible issue to his difficulties. Mark was
not, however, one of those who chalk out their line in life in moments
of quiet reflection, and then pursue the career they have fixed upon.
His course